From the Desk 4/23/2008

Today I arrived at work after picking up some Chick-fil-A for breakfast. The day always seems to start out better with a chicken biscuit. I got to work and decided to go ahead and do some of the physical labor preparations for Customer Appreciation Week. I divided out 30 boxes of Teacher Created Resources calendars that we are giving away with each purchase made May 5th - May 9th. This proved to be a more lengthy task than anticipated because the pallets that go to each store are located no where near the calendar giveaway boxes. I loaded them up on carts, labeled them, and distributed them among the store pallets. Tomorrow I will place another box on each pallet containing signs and balloons & pumps to decorate the stores for the week and promote the sales we have going on. I had a chance to talk to Anna (one of the regional managers) this morning and I think we are planning on me tagging along with her one day soon to visit some of the smaller stores to see what kind of space they have to work with so I can produce things that fit in their space as well as the larger stores. I also had a chat with Aimee (another regional manager) about a poster she needed to promote the furniture on sale in our Early Childhood piece within the Town Center store. I made it fairly quickly and hopefully we can boost some sales by moving out some of the furniture in the warehouse. I ran some errands on my lunch break including mailing the wedding DVDs out to the couple back in Knoxville. I spent the majority of the afternoon working on folding and stuffing the envelopes for the gift certificate mail out later this week. I'm just glad we have a machine that will tri-fold paper and stuff it in the envelopes for us. That save lots of time and headaches even though the machine sometimes jams and eats things if it is unhappy with your project. I also worked on a new cover for a cardboard display that holds our small floor mats. They are made by a company called Dr. O's whose owner, Joannia, used to be a purchasing agent for The School Box. The front of the current display is only a large version of the company's logo, but here is what I had in mind to add some flair and hopefully attract more attention. I also will have other products offered by the company to occupy the white space on the sides of the display.

After work I was actually very busy. I tagged along with Stacy to Old Navy and while there I actually found a pair of shorts on sale and 3 t-shirts (one for only$6!). I then accompanied Stacy to Walmart, where we both had to pick some stuff up, and she found a lounge chair that she had been looking for. After that I went home to change clothes, drove to Stacy's and then rode with Stacy to get gas for her truck and her lawnmower. We returned to her house and I began mowing the grass. It should have only taken about 15 minutes to mow, but it hadn't been mowed since before January and the grass reached 2 feet tall in some places. I finally got done about 35 minutes later and Stacy was kind enough to fix me some grilled cheese for dinner. While the food was cooking we squared off answering the questions on Jeopardy (I lost). After that I had plenty of energy left, but we decided to save the usual walk for another day. By that time is was 8:15pm and I was needing to go home and get some laundry done. I worked on laundry, emails, and talking on the phone with Hickey for the remainder of the evening. I also watched Law & Order's last episode with Detective Ed Green portrayed by Jesse L. Martin as a lead role. Martin is leaving the show to pursue more fruitful roles as an actor. He will be missed as he is a very talented actor. I tried to go to sleep a little early as I had exerted more effort today than usual, even though it felt good to be active again. Hopefully this will jump start my strenuous work out routine that I begin officially on Monday.

Meditation for the day: 2 Thessalonians 3:3 "But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one."