Sushi = yummy!

On Monday I ate lunch with Mike, Stacy, Tausha, Blair, and Carmen from work. We wnt to a new sushi restaurant in the shopping center near the store. I had a volcano roll (which has crab meat, salmon, avocado, and some spicy stuff) and it was delicious. I hope to eat there again and try some more varieties. I know some of you are surprised that I would even consider consuming a meal such as this, but you must remember that I have come a long way from only eating peanut butter and chicken. At work the past two days I have been chipping away at the early childhood flyer and by the end of work today I have completed the production/layout of 2 1/2 pages! I know it doesn't seem like much, but when you consider prepping the graphics for the flyer, writing/editing the copy for the items, and designing the product layout 2 pages in 2 days isn't bad. I need you all to pray for no rain this Saturday for 2 reasons: first frisbee golf in the rain is no fun and I'm hoping it will hold off so I get to hang out with Jubin. Second, I think that a Valentine's Day dinner (although a little late) would be much more enjoyable with pleasant weather.
I made another trip to Walmart tonight and now have everything I need to establish a very healthy eating plan for myself centered around 2 smoothies a day that combined contain all the servings of fruit, calcium, and vitamin C that I need in one day. It also fills me up without loading up on the calories or fat so I can still enjoy a hearty (hopefully healthy) dinner. I have also found as close as I think I will a picture of the DVD/Bookcase I'm looking for my living room area. Keep your eyes peeled (but not too hard) for something like this. I have yet to see one anywhere that is in stock! Oh well, I'm off to fold some laundry and then off to bed to dream of finger paints, art easels, and glues for teachers.

My fingers aren't broken... I can still type

Greetings! I haven't forgotten how to type or the website I use to post this blog. I just have been busy at work and found myself going to bed early or losing track of time in the evenings. Now that things have somewhat normalized at work I will only be updating this blog 2 times a week since the posts otherwise would be one or two sentences. I have continued to work this past week on the early childhood flyer that will go out in about 3 weeks. I also will begin next week to put together the initial layout of the Back-to-School flyer and finish up the fist round of signs for the retail sales floor. I had some visitors this weekend in Georgia. Mom, Dad, and Grandmother came down to visit me and bring down a few items for the apartment. We ate lunch at Ted's Montana Grill ad t was just as good as I remember it from my Nashville trip with Stephen and Whitney. We did a few things around the apartment and I gave them a quick tour of Kennesaw. Well that's about all for now. I'll try and update every few days to keep you informed of all my adventures (or misadventures) here in Georgia!

I've been workin' on a flyer. All the live long day...

Today at work I really only did about 3 things. That doesn't mean I was asleep at my desk or staring blankly at my large computer screen. (Although I imagine that I will someday hit a creative stumbling block and consider resorting to either of those things to break the cycle) I worked on 2 flyers and had a meeting today. I put some finishing touches on a Dr. Seuss flyer that I will need to print later this week. I got Stacy to proof it for me (Vickie calls her Eagle Eyes) and we got everything squared away and received a final approval from Vickie. I also worked for quite a while on the signs/flyers for VBS that will be coming up in a month or two. I like Lifeway's website because they provide free hi-res clip art for download on any VBS theme that they are promoting. This year's theme is Outrigger Island: Living God's Unshakable Truth. It is a fun sign to put together and the flyer I'm working on will be complete when I get a finalized list of products we will carry to support that theme. We will also be featuring another theme: Power Lab! Discovering Jesus' Miraculous Powers. I met with Dave and a gentleman from 104 the Fish radio station. The Schoolbox had sponsored a Private School Expo at the beginning of this year and had received a fairly good response from the spots we ran to coordinate our sponsorship. We talked about many different ways that we could use both the radio and their website to draw people to our store and our website. Nothing was set in stone (pricing is always the last thing to get to) but I feel confident that we will definitely be using them in the future.

Now to report on the weekend. I went to Knoxville (and saw most of you) I ate a nice breakfast of Pancakes and Bacon Saturday morning and at Pork Tenderloin with fried rice, veggies, and egg rolls Saturday night for dinner. If people keep cooking like that when I come into town, I just might come back every weekend! I went and saw Rambo in the movie theaters with Charlie and Hickey Saturday night. It was really good. It was your typical Rambo movie, but with the technology and special effects we have now the blood seemed more red and more plentiful than the past Rambo movies. I went back to Hickey's parents house and hung out there for a while. I went home and went to sleep in my new business class room at Le Chateau de Taylor. (I had a clock!) Then I drove home Sunday morning and met Whitney here at my apartment on her way back from her friend's place in Atlanta. It was really good to get to spend some time with her. (I kind of miss her if you can't tell) Anyways, that's all for today! Have a great week everyone!

Does anybody have some Advil?

Today at work was a really good day, aside from the fact that I had a headache that started around 10am and lasted until I got home from work around 5:15. Luckily Stacy had some pain meds and was gracious enough to share them with me. I worked on a couple of small projects for Kenny to provide our new Market Reps in the TN stores with flyers to distribute. I also printed out the 350 flyers for the Boys and Girls Club conference in Knoxville in March. I talked to Chris today and she wanted me to put together a flyer for the Knoxville store to promote TCAP test prep books. I put that together and am waiting for approval after a final proofing. I did do a lot more leg work on the sales flyer piece we are trying to produce in the next 2 weeks. Stay gave me a list of what will probably go on several of the pages of the flyer (Dave will authorize the final list of items) and I began collecting the graphics, cleaning them up, and typing out the product descriptions. I must admit that it is starting to look like a real flyer!

Not much happened at home tonight. I went and ran on the treadmill for about 20 minutes after eating some vegetarian vegetable soup for dinner. I watch the Lady Vols dominate Ole Miss in basketball and then decided to write on the blog and call it an early night so I would be rested for my drive to Knoxville tomorrow after work. I hope the wind dies down. I can hear it whistling in the trees outside my office window at the apartment. It is supposed to be cold here in the morning. Hopefully not cold enough to warrant wasting gas to heat-up and thaw out my car. Oh well, I will see you tomorrow night or Saturday, or if not then at least know I will be in town! Goodbye until tomorrow.

Salaries, Copiers, and Smelly Trash Cans

The day started off pretty good, and I guess it ended that way too. I met with Dave around 10:00 to discuss all the marketing opportunities that I have been asked about over the past week and a half. It didn't take long to discuss most of them because they were calls that I probably should have declined in the first place. Now that I know what media we do and don't use, I can begin to make some of those calls on my own and save some time and headaches. I did show Dave my layout and cover design for the sale flyer that we were contemplating and he really liked it. I spent a good deal of the morning simply printing out the retail signs that I have been making or revising in an effort to put together a master binder of all the signs available to the stores. I felt that it would be easier and more efficient/cost less to send the binder around to the stores with the operations managers and have them put together an order form for each store so I can print only the signs they need. I ran to Chick-fil-A for lunch today and redeemed my calendar coupon for a free chicken sandwich! Around 2:00 Mike (the tech guy) and I were given a thorough tutorial on all the features of our new copier. It does everything (short of making a pizza or cappuccino). It will even scan and image in and email it directly to my inbox! It also does lots of other cool things that I probably won't remember how to do when we need to use it. Tomorrow I will break it in and print 350 flyers for our sales rep in Knoxville.
I also received my paycheck stub that accidentally got sent to the Knoxville store last week. When I opened it I was very confused and after conferring with our HR manager I figured out that the incorrect pay rate had been applied for my new position! We worked together and got it straightened out.
Now for the Smelly Trash Can. I got back to the apartment today and was greeted at the door by a very foul odor that seemed to kick me in the face when I got close to the kitchen. I still don't know what caused that odor, but I promplty tied up the trash bag and took it out to the dumpster. I will be going to Walmart tomorrow and buying some air deodorizer to terminate any lingering odors and prevent future smelly take overs of the kitchen. Well I will leave you to marvel at the flyers I made that I have included in this blog. (it's okay that you had to re-read this section because you were no doubt drawn to look at the pictures of artistic genius again and again.) See you in 2 day!

The Copier is Coming, The Copier is Coming!

Can you guess what happened at work today? That's right! The new Color Copier arrived and this time was properly installed! (Does it worry anyone else that the high point of my day is the arrival of a new piece of office equipment?) I "tested" it out by printing some sample flyers and comparing it to the ones we had printed at a copy center. There was basically no difference. This thing is huge! (Really, it stands about 4 1/2 feet tall!) I will get to officially break it in tomorrow. I also got my own business cards today...I have arrived! I also ventured out today to Printing Impressions, where The School Box had flyers printed until we got this new copier, to pick up the last flyers we needed printed before the copier arrived. I found my way there and back without getting lost. This made me feel pretty good about my navigational skills.

I got home and fixed some Cheese Shells & Broccoli for dinner and caught part of an episode of Law & Order SVU. It was a repeat, but still pretty good. I decided to go ahead and file my tax return to see if I was going to get anything back. I got a pretty good return this year, just like last year! After that I talked with Mom on the phone for a while about various things and to confirm my reservations for my weekend stay at Le Chateau de Taylor. I got off the phone with her and then almost immediately my phone rang and it was Whitney! That's what I did until the start of the UT Men's Basketball game at 9:00. I will report on my meeting with Dave tomorrow and then I'll be 2 days away from returning to K-town.

Monday, Monday

Well,

It's hard to believe that I have been down here for 3 weeks now. Sometimes it feels like much less and sometimes it feels like more. I talked with Chris (the owner's wife) today and we are going to sit down later this week and go over the marketing calendar for 2008 and prepare for the next upcoming event: Back-to-School. This past weekend, Dave and the other Operations managers took a chance on advice from Kenny and I concerning Teacher Appreciation Day. For the past 3 years The School Box had held this event in May near the actual calendar day named Teacher Appreciation Day. The past few years have had dismal results, and Kenny and I asked if we could move the event to an earlier time in the year. We commented that we coordinated a promotion much like their Teacher Appreciation Day in January and it was a huge success. They took a chance on our advice... history repeated itself. We posted huge numbers in sales throughout the whole company. Knoxville had the highest sales of the day beating out the usual winner of Town Center (corporate store). That news was and exciting way to start off the week. Work was the usual mix of graphics, signs, and phone calls.

I watched the Lady Vols Basketball team finally beat Duke tonight. It was a hard fought game, but the end result was what I had wanted so the close calls and suspense till the end was worth the experience. I went to the weight room after I ate dinner and found it to be rather crowded. All the treadmills were occupied so I stuck to 30 minutes on the exercise bike for my workout. I created my own custom inserts for my Boy Meets World DVD set, and am now considering turning in early to gain some more sleep for another day. I will see you all this weekend when I come into town. Until then, have a great week!