From the Desk 8/11/2008

This morning I woke up and felt ready to tackle the week with the help of my extra sleep this past weekend. I got to work and worked on some details for the switch over to the pink website and some other ideas we have talked about to incorporate this theme in our retail stores for the months of September and October. I also updated the website header to remove the information about the GA Classroom Gift Card since it ended at midnight last night. I simply expanded the header graphic about the Back-to-School savings to cover then entire banner at the top of our homepage and then expanded the link to the flip book flyer to match. I responded to several more requests for donation that we simply do not have the resources right now to accommodate. I think that I will bring that up in the marketing meeting, that we need to develop a system that we follow to determine who we contribute to and who we decline. Shortly after that thought, I received my pack of index cards and marker from Vickie to began putting my ideas for the marketing meeting down on cards. I worked on that a little before lunch.

I joined Stacy and Tausha in the break room for lunch today. I was proud of myself for eating what I had brought as I received offers from both Carmen and Mike to go out different places for lunch. We ate and then returned to our desks rather quickly as we all had things to get back to and try and wrap up before the end of the day. I went back to writing out more cards for the meeting. I reached a mental block after writing out about 35 cards. (I joked with Vickie that I might need a 2nd pack of cards at that rate!) I then went to our homepage and began sketching different approaches for the boxes at the bottom of our site as we want to have them appear more graphical and eye catching. I came up with a few different ideas and will create rough versions of them later this week to share in our next website committee meeting the first Friday of September. I then met with Mike on some ideas for how to fix some of the older versions of documents on our manager's site. We have determined that we first need the input of the regional managers to determine which documents are old and which ones are new, then we can began the process of updating them by using the latest revision of the employee handbook. 5:00 rolled around sooner than expected and I went out the front and talked to Christina for a few minutes before heading home.

I changed clothes once I got home and then headed over to mow at Stacy's. The traffic was unusually light on my way over, but I didn't complain. I knew I had to mow today as rain has been predicted for every day until Saturday. I only had to empty the bag once while cutting the grass, which led me to believe that if I mow every 10 days then it will not get out of control. Since Stacy had dinner plans, she said she would buy me dinner tomorrow night at Marlow's when we met Leslie for dinner after work. I went home and ate dinner as I was starving by this point. I showered and then answered some emails, paid bills, and worked briefly on Elizabeth and Dustin's picture disc. I also finally took the time to decorate my Wii guitar controller with decals provided with the game. I think it turned out looking very rockin' if I do say so myself. Christina called shortly after 8:00 and told me she was out of work and on her way over. When she arrived I fixed her some taquitos and she ate them while I tried to beat a song on Guitar Hero III. I failed miserably (twice) at the song I was playing and after completely embarrassing myself, I put down the controller and turned off the Wii. We then watched the last 45 minutes of the movie "School of Rock" on TBS before Christina had to leave for the night. I walked her to her car and then we said goodnight. I fell asleep quickly as I was much more active today than my lazy weekend.

Meditation for the day: Psalm 55:22 " Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall."