Excitement, Anxiety Levels Increase As Store Opening Draws Closer

We are now one week out from moving into the new children’s clothing and toy store in downtown Dixon. And, ’m worried about everything.

I’m writing this in the middle of the night. I had already awakened a couple times so when I woke up again at 3 I decided to give up and go to the computer. When I had awakened at midnight, I felt like there was a hole burning through the center of my body. No, it wasn’t heartburn. It was raw nerves.

I have taken great pride in my ability to relax through just about anything—be it pain or stress—thanks to learning relaxation practices many moons ago in my childbirth classes. By the time I had two children with no medication and little pain, and having taught the same techniques for years in my childbirth classes, not being able to sleep is rare for me. We used to joke that I merely fainted as my head went toward the pillow.

At first I was thinking something was terribly wrong and that there was good cause for my tension but then I came across my journal from when I had re-opened my Davis store in 2005. I had written how I was crazy with anxiety when my son, then 9 years old, told me I was just having ‘pre-wedding jitters.’ I had asked him how he knew that and he said he saw it watching ‘Friends’ with big sister.

He was right. And, I’m having them again. There is so much to do still. My order for checks had a week delay because the address they were being sent to was not the address of the store. It made sense I would not be having checks sent to a facility I was not yet in but they didn’t get that and it took a letter from First Northern Bank to help remedy the situation.

Then I discovered that the brackets I needed to hold the rods that the children’s clothing would hang on were not available. I mean, like, not even made. They had three-inch and there is 12-inch. What—children’s clothing doesn’t exist? How can that be? If a hanger is 6-inches from tip to tip, then a bracket needs to stick out 6-inches from a wall, not 12 and certainly not 3. Now I have to have my husband totally customize the racks for me.

All we need are dowels from the hardware store and those plastic holders for the rods screwed into the sides of the units.

I do love my husband but I tell you those despairing sighs are about to do me in...

What David can do with a wickedly powerful drill in a matter of seconds would take me hours to do using anything so of course, I'd ask for help. I was trying to figure out why a popcorn-sounding push toy wasn’t working so I was feverishly unscrewing the tiny little screws with a screwdriver. I was on the third one when he roamed into the kitchen where I had the toy laid out like a slab of spare ribs on the counter. I asked for help. He sighed.

He got his drill and took two seconds to get off four other screws and then held out the power tool for me expectantly to finish the job. I did it while nearly drilling a crater in the tile countertop. Finally I was able to take the thing apart and study it. Before I knew it, several more screws fell on the counter and the thing nearly crumbled into several chunks of plastic. I heard a sigh and he asked again if I wanted to just stay home and plant flowers because he was missing his favorite television show.

Here’s my new policy. If it doesn’t work, I don’t care how brightly colored or cute or even if it brings back fond memories of my own children when they were tots—it will not be in my store. It took us another half hour to figure out how to get it all back together again and guess what, it still didn’t work. Just recalling the evening has made me tired. I’m going to try to get some sleep.