From the Desk 6/12/2008

This morning we had a guest at work...Cooper! Stacy needed to bring him to watch over him as she was not supposed to leave him alone until tomorrow since his surgery was only yesterday. I begin working on some graphics stuff that Chris had met with me about yesterday. I made a new template for the Service Awards given to each employee every five-year increment that they are employed with The School Box. I also made a new header for a rack for our Northlake store that holds Pacon cardstock, colored paper, and art paper. I worked on various other signs and finally created a template that I am happy with for the Webkinz pet of the month. If you don’t know what Webkinz are, consider yourself lucky as they are reminiscent of the Beanie Babies that created a frenzy several years ago. If you are brave enough, you may check out their website here. I worked on setting up a printing schedule for the first three days next week. I had to create this so I would not be monopolizing the copier all day by printing close to 5,000 copies of the New Teacher letter that will be distributed to the new teachers at their county orientation throughout metro Atlanta, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. I also have to order the paper so we have something to print on that has some color, but that will have to wait until tomorrow as Corey is out of the office today.

I ate my lunch while watching a couple of episodes of That 70’s Show. I tried the Fiesta Chicken with rice meal by Smart Ones. It was delicious and probably ranks in my top three meals in this healthy line of microwaveable dinners. For the remainder of the afternoon I felt kind of sleepy, but still managed to create an example of a new page I want to have created on the manager’s area of our website. I want to set-up an order area for retail signs so the managers can let me know what signs they need printed and sent to them at the beginning of each month. I don’t know when it will be up and running, but here is a sample of what I would like it to look like. I finalized the insert sheets for the Communicator Clearboards by the each and as a 10 pack that will be sold only in our larger “catalog stores”. Our catalog stores are the large stores that have space to stock items that we usually only special order at a customer’s request. I printed the inserts for the 24 sets of 10 and the single inserts for the 650 individual boards that we will sell in all of our stores. I found that the printing took a little longer than expected and finished just as I was leaving for the day.

I headed home to change clothes quickly and then headed out to mow the grass at Stacy’s. It didn’t take very long to mow the grass, but I was surprised at how high it had gotten since the last time I mowed. It took about 20 minutes to cut the grass, only having to stop once to empty the bag attachment. When I finished I grabbed a bottle of water and tried to cool down. Shortly after that, Leslie arrived with takeout from T.G.I.Friday’s to share with us. We decided to bring the food to Stacy since she had to remain at home to care for her recuperating Cooper. (that sounds kind of weird…like they’re the same word only not) Anyway, back to the real world…we shared the sampler appetizer (buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks, and potato skins) and the sesame jack chicken strips. Stacy provided chips and salsa to complete the meal. It was good food and lots of fun reminiscing about our meal at Marlow’s last Friday night. We finished eating and I sadly had to leave rather quickly to get home and work on some video editing. I got home and after about an hour and fifteen minutes I was finished and ready to create the menus and burn the reception off to DVD. It took far less time than I anticipated, which was very nice as I also wanted to update my Facebook and Myspace pages with new profile pictures from my trip to Folly Beach. I finished a load of laundry and then went to bed to rest up for Friday and the weekend in Knoxville.

Meditation for the day: A random thought I had after talking about relationships with Stacy and Leslie....

"Love is only a game if you agree to play by the rules"