A Container of Canopy Chairs

A few of you have asked how the Original Canopy Chair is selling, after seeing it in Target, Sports Authority, Ace Hardware, etc... this Spring. (For those of you who don't know, I'm the General Manager of Renetto, the company that invented and sells the canopy chair. It was conceived in part by Paul Robinett, who also owns the store I manage as well as being a YouTube celebrity.)

Well, chair sales are booming! So much so that we're having to order containers of chairs almost monthly in order to keep the chairs in stock. It can be a bit hard to visualize ordering thousands of chairs from overseas in a "container" and unloading them into our warehouse if you've never seen it done, so here are a few visuals:

This is a 40 foot container placed on a semi truck for transport. Our containers come across the pacific on a huge barge, with thousands of other containers of similar size. They are then placed on a train at a port on the West coast and railed across the country to a trucking company in Ohio that dispatches our container to us after I set up a time. It takes about 3 weeks for the chairs to travel from the manufacturer to us in Columbus.

We then put together a crew of 10-12 people from friends and family in town and we meet the driver at our warehouse and start unloading! If we're lucky, it's a beautiful 65 degree day, like it was yesterday! (We've also done this in 90 degree heat...not so fun!)

My Operations Manager (and fellow Goose), Karl, organizes the jobs and divides them up - we have people in the truck calling out colors and passing down chairs. People on the ground load them onto carts and dollies and take them into the warehouse.
This is the warehouse- it is organized "neapolitan-style," we like to say; basically in columns of colors (we offer 10 or so). Each layer of 10 chairs (2 per box) is numbered so that, at a glance, we can tell exactly how many of each color we have.

It went very smoothly, and we were done in an hour and a half, which is a record for us! So, we're all stocked up and ready to keep filling orders...they've ramped up exponentially over the last few weeks! And, if unloading a container of chairs sounds like a way you'd want to spend an evening, let me know and I'll add your name to the contact list! :)

Our Baby Shower!

What do you get when you combine my 4 wonderful sisters, my amazing sister-in-law, my creative friends, and my best friend who also happens to be one of Columbus' most amazing special event/wedding planners? Well...you get an incredible, honoring day featuring delicious, beautiful food, stunning decor, and wonderful fellowship with friends and family. It all started with the adorable invitations, handmade by a group of us. This, I will tell you, was the only part of the entire day that they let me help with! As someone who spends most of her life planning parties and gatherings, not being able to help was really strange, but very refreshing.


The Baby Shower was held at the Darby House, an event space sitting on 4000 acres of pristine horse farm and rolling countryside outside of Columbus. Because Caitlin is an event planner for the venue, they allowed her to use the entire thing for the whole day! In the entryway, Caitlin designed vinyl lettering to go on the windows from our friends at Wonderful Graffiti, displaying the "theme" of nesting! A wire tree sculpture was hung with little bird-stamped tags.On the tree, guests were encouraged to write notes and prayers for our growing family!The room was set up beautifully, using chocolate brown and light blue and green linens. It was also a truly stunning day!As you can tell, this is going to be a picture-heavy post, and most of them were taken by my friend and photographer, Robin Oatts of Genre Creative and Spindle Studios. She is fiercely talented (you may also remember her from such website designs as Wild Goose Creative).The food was just incredible, and was made by my talented friends and family! We had English scones with lemon curd, jam, and clotted cream, chicken and egg salad sandwiches on pretzel rolls, watermelon and feta salad, tortellini salad, fruit kebabs, and an array of beautiful cookies.
The cake was made by Columbus' own Sue Larson, who is a master sugar artist as well as baker of beautiful cakes. The nest on top of the cake is made of light brown pure spun sugar with three handmade marzipan robin's eggs inside.The centerpieces are Caitlin Foley specials, with grapevine nests and multicolored tulips with spaghnum moss and thistle in ceramic sage green containers. I'm a bit biased, but she is the most amazing floral designer in the universe! The little brown bag favors were made my my dear friend (and fellow Wild Goose) Jessie, and contain a special blend of my favorite tea with a beautiful note and perfectly coordinated paper and bird stamps. The blue candles are from Paul Robinett's.Jessie and Jacqui are sporting the pacifier necklaces on blue grosgrain ribbon that people got to take from you if they heard you use the word "baby." My sister Marina was rabid at this game! Here I am, applauding Jacqui (also a fellow Goose and good friend) for her handiwork on Peanut, the Wee Elephant, a stuffed animal she made for Baby D!And here is more craftiness going on, as guests (Caitlin, Carolyn, Lisa, Mandi, and Amanda) decorate onesies, hats, and socks for our little boy!
All in all, it was a truly overwhelmingly beautiful day. I want to sincerely thank everyone who was involved in the planning and the execution of the shower! Like I said, it was so honoring and humbling to have our friends and family show so much excitement and anticipation for our little boy. I can't wait to introduce him to each and every one of you!

P.S. Some of you may be wondering where Nick was during the shower...well, he was down the hall, where the guys had thrown him a Man Shower! :) I'll let him tell you about it!

Dogolas, what do your dog eyes see?

In this picture, Maeby is thinking, "Something's changing around here. I wonder what's coming?"

Hint, Maeby: Baby D is coming. Just under six weeks from now. You have no idea...

The latest from Baby D...

We had our latest ultrasound last week Friday. Beth and I were both excited to get to see our little man again. The overall visit was pretty short - always a good thing! Dr. Ruedrich basically looked over everything and pronounced it good. We could see Baby D's legs, plus his heart beating, and his chest rising and falling. The Dr. pointed out that, even though babies get their oxygen through the umbilical cord, they will "practice" using their lungs by breathing the amniotic fluid in and out.


Dr. Ruedrich confirmed again for us that Baby D is, in fact, a boy. And just to eliminate any doubt, he labeled the photo.

He also managed to get a couple mug shots of Baby D. You can see many of his facial features.

Our little man just keeps getting bigger and bigger! Beth took her sisters Kate and Abbey to her non-stress test this morning so they could hear his heart beating. And now, whenever he moves, you can see it on Beth's tummy. Another month and a half, buddy!

Non-Stressed Out

Baby D and I started our non-stress tests last week. We go twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and get hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor and a uterine activity monitor. These are attached to a machine which spits out a long paper recording the baby's heart rate (the top line) and my uterine activity (the line way at the bottom). I also have a little Jeopardy- buzzer I click whenever Baby D moves. The printer makes a little mark on the page when I hit the buzzer (those are the little black arrows in the middle of the paper). You can see he moves A LOT...and it definitely increases when he hears Nick's voice.

Not everyone needs to go through these tests, which are quite boring (and early in the morning!), but our doctor, Dr. Ruderick, requested that we do them until I go into labor. He says that because we had trouble getting pregnant in the first place, our pregnancy is classified as "Premium," one step down from "High-Risk," and he wants to be able to keep tabs on how Baby D is doing as much as possible...which is fine by us! Everything looks good so far, so Baby D is pretty comfortable where he is!

I enjoy it because I get to hear my son's heart beat through a speaker for a whole 45 minutes a few times a week, which, even though it is fast, is very soothing. It makes it all seem that much more real!

Outlaw Gardener

Nick and I have been wanting to start a compost pile for a while, and even more now than ever after reading pages upon pages of research of the eternal cloth vs. disposable diaper debate. (Which I am not even going to get into on this blog because I know how controversial that topic is.) With the way landfills are being built right now (with no leakage/drainage), even grass clippings thrown into the trash take forever to decompose, so why not put the good stuff to good use? We knew we'd get one right away when we bought a house. I did some research and bought one made from recycled plastic on ebay. It was super easy to put together, and holds 12 cubic feet of compost materials.

As soon as it arrived, I happily assembled it and started layering dry leaves, some grass clippings and food scraps, all according to some great websites I've found. I've adjusted the percentages of nitrogen vs. carbon materials, and added water and soil at the right times of day...it's a lot like having a giant science experiment in the backyard! I am really enjoying it for some reason, and between composting and recycling, we've been able to cut down our garbage at least 50% so far. It's actually made me add more fruits and vegetables to our daily meals, just so I can add the scraps to the compost!

However, my compost bliss lasted until I found out on ColumbusUnderground.com that composting within the Columbus city limits is illegal! In fact, per Columbus City Ordinance:

707.03 Standards relative to solid waste.
...
(G) No person shall deposit or allow to accumulate in any building, premise, yard, court, lot, street, alley, sidewalk, easement or any other place, except in authorized receptacles, any substance, solid, semi-solid or liquid, or animal, vegetable or mineral origin, that by its decay, decomposition, chemical action or by becoming a harbor for animal or insect pests, would become an unsanitary condition. (Ord. 858-01 §§ 1 (part), 5 (part).

It would appear that they are mostly concerned that a compost pile would attract rodents. What is strange is that you might think that "authorized receptacles" might ease the burden against compost bins, but a call to the city assured me that no food scraps were allowed to be collected, no matter the container. (These anti-composting sentiments, of course, fly in the face of Columbus' Green City efforts.)

You may think this made me think twice about keeping my inner-city compost bin, but NO! Now I dream of the day where the fuzz bursts into my backyard and attempts to confiscate the 140 degree decomposing plant matter as I chain myself to my compost bin, reciting various passages from the Constitution and/or the EPA handbook. GIVE ME COMPOST OR GIVE ME DEATH!

I'm pretty sure the City of Columbus has bigger things to focus on...actually, I PRAY they do! But it's fun to dream.

32/40, or 8/10, or 4/5

Who's that hot mama? That's right, it's my wife Beth. Today marks Week 32 of the pregnancy. This puts us at roughly 4/5 of the process! Baby D is taking up more and more space everyday, and his movement has gotten much stronger. Last night, as I read to him, he was punching his poor mama pretty hard. It felt like a tiny fist pressing against her belly.

So far, we've toured the maternity ward of the hospital (we're birthing at the Ohio State Medical Center, for those who want to know); we're almost done with our birthing classes, which have been informative and comforting; and the nursery is practically finished. Once it's done, we'll post some pictures up here on the blog. And we're almost done landscaping the backyard - not necessarily for the baby, but we wanted everything organized and in the ground before Beth's baby shower in a couple weeks. I just have to fertilize and mulch and then we'll watch it grow! Now I've started planning the bag we'll take to the hospital, and drafting the e-mails/blog post I'll send out when we head in. So our preparation (as much as we can), is almost complete!

It's funny how I feel a definite pressure to complete a bunch of things before the baby arrives. The pressure is all self-applied, that's for sure. And none of it has been that "This is my last chance at freedom" feeling, like I've got to ride a motorcycle or skydive or go on some wild adventure before the baby comes home. It's more the type of "Let's get this fixed" or "Let's paint this room" or "Let's finish the landscaping" feeling. More task-oriented. And we're doing well, I think. We've made a bunch of minor repairs around the house over the past few weeks; the nursery is almost finished; we cleaned, patched, and repainted the nasty basement stairway; and a friend from church is here now doing some electrical work. Plus, we're getting to travel a bit in the next month: a trip to see friends in Chicago this weekend, a cousin's wedding in Pennsylvania a couple weeks after that. And then we'll settle in and wait for Baby D-Day!

Dear Sally Who Works at the Short North Chase Bank,

Hello! I know I'm in there at least 3 times a week, and that you see me all the time. I know that you've seen me after running to the bank in the rain, on good days and bad days, and over the past several months as I have been getting noticeably rounder. I know we have had our spats when you seemingly make up rules regarding the 9 accounts I manage just to make my Mondays worse.

So, my dear Sally, think twice before telling me I look tired...even if you say "I don't mean that in a bad way!" Because that's just a soft way of telling me I look worse than I usually do, and there is no nice way to say that.

Love, Beth