Other April Happenings

Seems like the couple of weeks before going away on vacation or to an event are always FULL of all kinds of things. April has been no expection! Like I said yesterday, my new camera arrived on April 3rd and I got a chance to test it out on Saturday when Sandy and I went to NYC for the day. Had a huge list of odds and ends and places to check out and ended up doing only a few things. Let's see: Mood Fabrics (yes, Project Runway fans, that Mood; it's a great fabric junkie's store); a nice walk up 7th Ave to Times Square; subway to Payards@ 73rd and Lexington for lunch; back to 49th and 6th for the Tartan Day Parade (unfortunately we managed to miss it---OOPS) then back to Times Square where we found M&M's World...how fun it that...we even mixed Scrap ETC M&M's for our secret sisters....and across the street, Hershey's World. Checked out the casting for Project Runway Season 5...no Tim Gunn or Heidi Klum sightings, only a long line of hopefuls waiting their turn outside the hotel in Times Square.



Sunday night was kind of a sad night but a fun party. If you've read my blog you may remember that my store manager and the district manager have had a terrible working relationship since day 1. He's wanted her to resign, she's had some health concerns, it's been BAD. Well, she made the tough decision to step down in early February and he convinced her to stay on until the beginning of April (managers' review cycle time). Everything was good until the last week when some real nastiness happened. Let's just say it didn't end well and the planned outcome didn't happen. And we are manager-less. We were all hoping that our assistant manager, Jeff would be promoted but alas, corporate politics has stepped in and squashed that idea.

Anyway, the staff had a surprise party for Yukie at one of the guy's house on Sunday night. Yes we surprised her and lots of current and former employees showed up.

IMHO, it really was the best decision for her--both health and happiness wise because the situation was not going to get any better and probably would have only gotten worse. They screwed her in the end but she'll be fine. Thanks for 10 great years Yukie!!! Enjoy your well deserved island getaway!!!

Back to getting dinner ready; then off for more cleaning, organizing, and purging in the studio!
Enjoy,
Janet

Scrap ETC 2008

Finally getting a chance to update the blog about our wonderful weekend in Nashville at ScrapEtc. So great to see all our peeps although there's NEVER enough time to just hang out. The Opryland Hotel is everything they say and more---a huge, beautiful and pricey facility. And we never set foot out of the building from the time we checked in on Thursday until we checked out on Sunday morning.

The event itself was great....loved Group C and our leader Brittany.....the classes were all projects that I actually want to finish....amazing teachers--Jenni, Heidi, Angelia, Gretchen, Wilna, Monique, and Vanessa. There were challenges--not enough time for meals and the SNL event was hopelessly disorganized, but overall a good time.

Thanks to everyone for signing the quilt --- looking forward to finishing it, raising lots of money for JDRF, and sending to live with someone special!

Spent Sunday and Monday visiting sites in Nashville. Got tix to the Evening Worship Event at the Ryman(part of Gospel Music Week) for Sunday night----an absolutely fantastic evening with Michael W. Smith and Israel Houghton as worship leaders. Even though we missed church on Sunday we went to church! Visited The Hermitage and Belle Meade Plantation, drove up to Scrappuccino and had dinner at the Loveless Cafe.

As you can tell, I've gotten a new camera!!! YEA!!!! Decided to take the plunge and get a Canon Digital Rebel XT I'll still fix the point-and-shoot but since I'm wanting to take better photos it made sense. More about its first outing next time!

We're off to the ballet!

Enjoy,

Janet