Thursday, November 27, 2008

Chris the Coal Miner


Chris went on a little work-related field trip to a coal mine last week. He looks pretty cute with his hard hat and head lamp on, doesn't he? You can see the coal at the bottom of the wall on the left side of the picture. Apparently they spray parts of the wall to reinforce it and keep the coal from falling all over the miners as they pass through.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Unemployed again

Well, as of 4pm yesterday, I am no longer a Border's employee. I resigned from the glamorous life of a bookseller in order to plunge head-first into my mom and my furniture/home decor business. Hopefully I'll also have more time to write, but who knows? Starting up a business my just take all the time I have to give it.

We still haven't decided on a name. lol Ridiculous. But that's the goal for this weekend while we're all together in Michigan. We're not leaving without a great name to work with. Wish us luck, and feel free to leave a comment with any ideas you have. :-)

Birthday Pics

A few pictures from Chris and Mike's birthday celebration over at their dad's house. Their aunt Lynn got them a delicious ice cream cake and they both received wonderful presents. (We got Mike a WoW manga. hahahahaha)


Here's Miley, being nosey. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the three other dogs that came over that night ... well, four actually. Kara and Paul (Lisa's son) brought over their 9-month-old boxer, their chihuahua and her dad's whimerhimer. Before that, the neighbor's energetic german shepard wandered over when the boys were taking Miley for a walk. It was doggy heaven over there. lol
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Monday, November 10, 2008

Adventures in starting up a business

Well, my mom and I have decided to go into business together. We're going to sell our works online. For anyone who knows either of us, you'll understand why I have to use the very vague term "works" to describe our product. Between the two of us, there is no shortage of creative ideas. Each year, my mom specializes in a different project, last year being her fern pictures, this year being her leaf pictures. I'm still exploring and building my areas of expertise, but if you've been following this blog, you'll be sure to see more furniture pieces like what I've worked on before.

But this isn't the part that is stumping us at the moment. I'm not at all worried about the product. I don't want to be over-confident, but I have faith that my mom and I can produce some wonderful things to sell to our customers.

What is stumping us, however, is the name. I know. I know. I'm a writer. This should be my forte. This is my thing. But alas, I'm stumped. Every time I think I've come up with a good name for the business, I discover that it's already been taken by six other companies. Blahhhhh.

We're getting close though. Since I work with more international/cultural designs, and my mom does a lot of really pretty country designs, we have agreed that "----- Villa Creations" is a good starting off point. The problem is the: ------. We need an adjective so that we aren't stealing another company's name, and to just make ours richer and more memorable. We need something that fits both our styles and lets the customer get a quick idea of what we're all about.

That's a lot to ask from one little word though. So here we are ... thinking about a name.

If you have any suggestions, please feel free to add them in a comment below. We could use a little inspiration. :-)
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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Jamaica

Some of the highlights of our trip to Ocho Rios, Jamaica for my brother, Adam's wedding to Andrea, my new sister-in-law. :-)