From the Desk 4/28/2008

Today I got to work and promptly began working on a task that Dave had handed to Mike and I. We are supposed to find and select a mailing house here locally in Kennesaw for any future direct mail pieces we need to distribute to our customers. This task seems simple enough, but it is very hard to find stand alone mail fulfillment centers. Everyone seems to be going for an all-in-one approach to marketing. I have made contact and met with several printers that handle everything from concept to creation to distribution. Unfortunately these companies would be priced higher than our current mailing house that we use in Chattanooga since we would only be employing their mailing services. I'm sure Mike and I will call many different places tomorrow to narrow down the list to ones that are within 15 miles of the corporate office, have the fastest turn-around time, and have the most reasonable price. I also confirmed arrangements for our newspaper insertion in mid-May with the two newspapers in our Tennessee stores. This is my first project that I have seen from start to finish and it is all going without a hitch so far (fingers crossed). I also have now tweaked the final version of our Summer Catalog cover and I must say that it is definitely a new direction for The School Box, but I think it will generate more interest than usual.

I watched an episode of Psych on my lunch break and then returned to mailing house searches for the majority of the afternoon. I also took some time to work on a card stock divider type piece that we could use in our bookcases to highlight specific products. It is sort of like a file folder but only a single sheet with the tab being at the top instead of along the side. There are 2 different versions: one for new products and one for on sale items. I noticed around 3:55pm that today time passed really quickly as the last time I looked at the clock it was 1:30pm! Stacy and I decided that today we would go walking after work for a bit. That works out to my advantage because I was planning on starting my workout today, and now I can just go to the weight room after I walk at Stacy's since I'll already be in the active mode. I worked on some random projects until 5:00 rolled around and then I headed home to change into walking clothes (I really don't know what classifies articles of clothing as "walking clothes" but I figured if they have specific clothing for every other activity why not for walking)

I changed clothes and headed to Stacy's for some walking. We walked for about an hour and then I headed back to my apartment. Stacy had somewhere to be so there was no dinner tonight, which is fine because if I don't eat some of the food I've got it will go bad. I returned to the weight room at my apartments to begin my workout. I was ultimately let down because the weight room is closed for routine cleaning/maintenance so I will have to delay my kick-off to fitness until another day. I fixed myself some dinner and proceeded to watch some Law & Order SVU while I dined. I spent the rest of the evening occasionally glancing at the TV, but mostly ordering some more miniDV tapes for my upcoming weddings and more water shield DVDs too. I went to bed around 11:30pm and fell asleep almost as quickly as the night before.

Meditation for the day: Genesis 31:49 "May the Lord watch over you and me when we are apart, one from the other."