We've Moved

Now you can find me at blog.wonderfulgraffiti.com or Mary's Blog on the Wonderful Graffiti website. (On our website, click "About Us." Mary's Blog is bottom left.

Doughnuts II

Blogging just kills me. I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who read blogs. I don't read blogs, Although I'd like to (see previous entry.) And, dear reader, I'll say this as gently as I can: How do you find the time? This morning I got a call from one of my favorite friends, Mike. We'd lost touch. Hadn't seen him in like two years. I say , "Mike! I'm so glad you called. How are you?" And he says, "Great. I'm just great. Say, where'd you get the raised doughnut recipe you and Ryder made the other day?" (See next to last entry for complete doughnut story.) Our dishwasher broke.We don't want to buy another one. Buying a dishwasher is like buying tires; there's really not a lot to get excited about. Not for me anyway. Geord's been doodling with it but so far no luck. At first I thought, "Washing dishes isn't so bad. I'll relish the old-fashioned experience of soap suds and hot water." Well, now I'm over it. Oh, Mike? The doughnut recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook. The one with the red cover and the three-ring binder. The revised version. My mom gave it to me. In 1986. M.

Wintry Mix

This weather has got to go. To walk the dog twice a day, I have to put on boots and a jacket (wearing my undershirt 24/7) plus mittens and scarf. Pull jacket hood over hat. Then the dog needs his little jacket, leash, a "business" bag, as Mackenzie calls them. and a tissue in my pocket because my nose runs halfway around the block. Such a production. C'mon, April!

Question Day

Brrr. Ice storm here. I'm always cold in winter. Isn't that supposed to be a sympton of some dread disease?

I can't find any good blogs to read. I took a look at Blogs Of Note on blogspot and the blogs on there were boring. Maybe I hit them on a bad day. Anyone know any good blogs to read? That have to do with specific subjects, not just random musings like mine? And I don't want to read any blogs that are about women running businesses, or entrepreneurs, or typography or interior design. I get enough of that on my own blog. Mary Roberts, surely you can help me here.

What about a gardening blog? I'd like to read a good gardening blog. Gardening is my diversion.

Why am I so bad at math? A client called today and wanted to know the price of something at 25% off. The original price was $400. I panicked. I could NOT comprehend that one fourth of $400 was $100. Ergo, her sale price was $300. Um, that is right, right?M.

Ryder's Doughnuts

I brought homemade doughnuts in to work this morning. One batch makes a lot.

See, ever since I took my Dad's Fry Daddy from his house when he sold it, Ryder and I have had Fun With Hot Grease.We've made fritters and funnel cakes a few times each. (Once he got good at funnel cakes, he made some for his friends who were completely unimpressed. So now he doesn't fry for friends anymore.)

For the longest time, he and I have been wanting to make raised doughnuts. His main obsession lately has turned from Panda Express to Tim Horton's. He loves how their doughnut holes come in their own little paper carton. (Frankly, so do I.) So he really, really wanted to make doughnut holes.

He had the day off from school, so I told him to start the dough around 4pm so we could have doughnut holes for dessert. Geord was home with a cold. The recipe said "2 packages yeast." So he asked Geord, "Are these 2 packages of yeast?" And Geord, perhaps in the delirium of a fever, said yes. The problem was, what Ryder was holding were two JARS of yeast.

They got past that snafu. Then Ryder learned what happens when you turn on the mixer with the spatula still in the bowl. When I cleaned up after dinner, I got to the mixer and said, "Oh, Ryder." And he said, "You should have seen it BEFORE I cleaned it up!" M.

Very Patient

Patient. Very Patient.

Remember an earlier post, in which I wrote that I was tired of whining about my competition and had finally gotten jazzed up enough to fight back? (I don't know why it took me so long. Maybe because I'm a whiner?) Well. Here's what I did.

I made a list of 10 big retail names that might be a good fit for Wonderful Graffiti. Then I sent them letters. With pictures. And samples. That was two weeks ago. So far–ta da!–I've heard from two of them and they're really interested in working with us! I'm playing phone tag with one of them–a big, fat, lovely prospective partner. Their buyer called yesterday while I was taking my dad to the optometrist. When I got back and returned her call, I got her answering machine. I wanted to camp out at our office for the rest of the night because I didn't want to miss her call again. Geord dragged me home, saying, "They're in the same time zone we are, Mary. It's 6:30pm. Don't you think they've all gone home by now?" It's a good thing I didn't have to speak to the buyer right after I got her initial call. My heart was pounding so fast! I would have been reduced to speaking gibberish. More than usual.

Today I'm supposed to be taking my dad to another doctor's appointment, but Geord did it instead so I can sit by the phone. Patiently. Because I'm such a patient person. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. M.

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Struggling With Measly

One of my last entries dealt with a competitor who was using my phrase “interior typography.” She wrote me back and said she didn’t know I was the one who came up with it, that it was already a standard within the “industry.” I guess that’s a good thing. The more people who see it, the more people get it. I have to get used to the idea that, once I throw something out there, it’s no longer mine. M.

Adrian's Gone

Oh, don't worry. He just went to Malaysia for two weeks with his parents and sisters. See, he's Chinese but grew up in Malaysia. He's terribly exotic. We all love him to death. Although I will say that there were a few days before he left when he was terribly grumpy. Adrian and Michael have both been working on new designs for the site. Plus there's one new one from Jessie. Here are the first six. What do you think? Any suggestions will be duly considered.

New Graffiti Quote

It feels like the day after a wedding today. Still reliving (with the help of 24-hour news) the high points of the inauguration. My friend Amy D. wrote today to say, "I think there was some Graffiti in that speech.” She suggested: "There is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task." Barack Obama, Inaugural address, Jan 20, 2009

Received a comment on my company blog from a potential client who changed her mind about buying Graffiti after reading about my obvious support for President Obama. Wonder what she'd think about my support for gay rights? M.

A Great Thing

Tomorow I'm taking a large portion of the day off to watch the inauguration. It's one of the few perks of being self-employed.

I've been watching some of the preliminary festivities, and everyone has an opinion about what the inauguration means, but no one says what I think. I think that we should celebrate that, as a country, we did a great thing. That we did the right thing. That the election was truly transformative. And because of that, I have great hope for the future of our company.

I am so proud of us. M.

BRIDES Stickers

The editor of BRIDES magazine called end of day yesterday. She needed 500 white & fuscia stickers for an event celebrating their 75th birthday. (The sticker art said "75 BRIDES," so I'm assuming.) We don't normally do large quantities of stickers, so we didn't have the size of sticker paper she needed. We rooted around and found frosted sticker paper. She wasn't sure how that would look. So we printed some, slapped them on some glass, I took a photo and emailed it to her. She said fabulous. We're printing them today to ship to CA this afternoon. Ta-da!

We do lots of stuff for BRIDES events. In return, they use our stuff for photo shoots. Next month in BRIDES you'll see our daisies on some votives. I wish they'd stop using Graffiti on votives though. No one ever buys votives. Perhaps you'll recall that we currently have 4,940 votives from China in our store room. We're hoping that votives will suddenly be very trendy this wedding season. M.

Lucky Flexibility

I'm lucky I have a job that lets me take care of my dad when he needs me. Today I spent the morning doing the post-accident checkup thing. The first doctor sent him to get a chest x-ray to make sure he didn't have pneumonia. Apparently people who break ribs get pneumonia. Not good for someone who's 80. Then we had to pick up antibiotics. Schedule a follow-up visit. Schedule a urologist visit (separate issue.) He has an eye appointment next week. We'll get license plates for his new car when his title arrives. Now I have to write an email to update my siblings.

The designers are working on new designs for the general Graffiti collection. I selected current designs that aren't selling as well as others. We'll put those "dogs" in the Design Archives once we launch the new designs. There are a few new designs I'm wild about. Others aren't there yet. We're trying to get them all done in the next week or two. The last few weeks of our January Write Sale get a little crazy. Or we hope they will be, this year. M.

Flex Hours

We had a team meeting yesterday to announce a revision to our flexible hours policy. Instead of coming and going whenever they want, our team members now have the option of working 8-4, 9-5 or 10-6. They have a week to transition to the new policy and as of this coming Monday, if they get here past 10am, they get to go home and try it again the next day.

One of the reasons we had to change the policy was because some people weren't coming in until noon. Which is fine with me except that they'd get phone calls from clients and we'd have to say, "Um, sorry, they're not in yet." It seemed unprofessional. And even though I'm all for working the way you want to, I'm also all about presenting a professional image.

I've written this before: as time goes by, we've seen the need to become more like a real company, with less liberal policies.

On the other hand, I hope we never become so corporate that we can't have a blast working every day. M.

Network Possibilities

Taped a wedding video spot for my friend, wedding photographer Michael Barber, this morning. He just launched a site for the wedding community in Columbus, Ohio, and asked me to do the spot as a "preferred vendor." It was fun. Took a Black Tie banner, easel sign, canvas and Graffiti monogram transfer. I'm so struck by all of the possibilities available on blogspot. I can join a blogger group, find blogs about things I'm interested in (gardening!) and follow the most popular blogs. I'm on facebook and Linkedin and soon, Twitter, but I'm wondering where I'm going to find the time to do them all. Our business counselor said to join the internet network and it's thrilling, but it's all I can do to blog. Yikes.

This duplicates the blog on my website, Wonderful Graffiti.com. The blog on my site looks boring and it's not user friendly–for me or readers. I've never liked it so I'm jumping ship. Don't tell that to our site developers, though. I've been blogging on my site for five years. Faithfully! I blog about what it's like to juggle a start-up business with a husband, two kids, a home, a dog and a cat. Short answer: it's hard.