A Catch-Up: Work

Work is hectic as usual. But thankfully now the Lockerbie case is finished with so some sense of normality can resume in the office. I've had a couple of great nights out with the guys from work... not too sure how Derek feels about that lol. I think he'll just have to come to terms with the fact that his Wife is hot!!! *Wink*. Still, nothing wrong with a bit of male attention. He worked with loads of chicks so I think it's fair! ;o)

Brainstorming

I'll be placing my 3rd Avon order at the start of next week and now that I've established my customer base, I thought I'd introduce some incentives. :o) Love making money! Lol.
I forgot to take my book on the train this morning so I started brainstorming instead lol. Here's what I came up with:

• Introducing the Points System. For each £1 a customer spends, they get 10 Avon points. Points can be used to 'pay' for items in their order. I'd back-date points so they start with a balance based on their sales up until that point.
• Enclosing free Samples with brochures for existing customers. I did this already and I'm not sure the level of success. So far nobody has bought the item I let them sample lol. But they have placed an additional order.
• Refer-a Friend! Offering my existing customers to recieve a 10% discount card valid for one order for each new customer they generate for me. I'm thinking this would encourage people to take their brochure to work, school, the gym, relatives... They refer 5 new customers to me, they get 10% off their next five orders!
• Enjoy a Free Gift! To encourage larger orders, I was thinking that all orders over say £25 would recieve a free bottle of room spray, or bath jelly or something. Maybe from a range that they wouldn't normally buy from.

Ok now I'm done brainstorming, it's your turn! What do y'all think about these? Any new suggestions are very much appreciated. :o)

THANX!

Wet

We've been having some crazy summer weather here in the UK. Friday night we had the worst thunder and Saturday night was torrential rain for hours! But England seems to be more badly affected (wish I could feel for them lol.) I read an article this morning about the fear of a dam bursting in South Yorkshire where hundreds have fled their homes after cracks appeared in the wall of the reservoir.
In Sheffield, there has been significant damage to the city, damage which they think could run into millions of pounds. I know that this "off the scale" crazy weather and its consequences are not to be taken lightly, but I can't help but think of New Orleans. To them this is merely a puddle and residents are freaking out! Hopefully it will take something like this close to home to open people's eyes to the natural disasters taking place all over the world.
I had to laugh though... There was a comment on the BBC news website from someone stating "It took me 4 hours to drive the 10 miles home from Sheffield yesterday." You know, sometimes it's ok to walk lol.

Ok that's my piece for the day. :o)

Barbados Cherries

I'm sitting here enjoying a nice tuna and sweetcorn pasta salad and a smoothie for my lunch.
The salad states that "it may not mend a broken heart but this tun pasta is seriously comforting." Lol. It's lunch and any sort of lunch is comforting 'cos it stops you being hungry!
And I also learned a bit of trivia. Did you know that the acerola cherry (also known as the Barbados cherry) is so much fancier than the regular everyday cherry? Lol.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Happy Fathers Day to the best Dad in the world! :oD

I phoned Dad and the first thing I said was "Happy Father's Day" to which he replied..... "Thanks, d'you want to speak to Mum?" *Sigh*. :oP

Today Neilston, tomorrow the World!

Today I spoke to my Avon Sales Manager on the phone about my the territory I get to cover. At the moment I have 2 streets but one of them isn't nearly as profitable as the other. And I clearly have a long way to go to reach my 100% target for Toronto. So, I decided to see if I could swap it for another area. Well, today I got given 4 more streets! They're all weensie so it's only like 54 houses. But I'm hoping that my total sales hit £400 a campaign! It's not too unrealistic considering my first campaign was £228 and my second was £328! Go me! Lol. We'll just have to wait and see. :D Loving it! :D :D :D

When I grow up, I want to be a hand model! Lol.

I'm famous!!! Our new work website was launched this week and I'm on it!!! Ok, it's only my hands and arm but it's me!!! I really must stop biting my nails now.....

Here I am!!
And again...
And one more time! :)

Here's my colleague Sarah's hands and Joanne (the more photogenic one of us all *lol*) is posing here and here!

I know what you all are thinking... how do the guys here get any work done with us beatiful ladies around??? ;) HAHAHA!!!

Quick Toronto update: I have my latest Avon invoice in, so with that and my last batch of babygrows, I can update my chart tonight! :D

Jen and Carol's International Photo Tag!

My Canadian friend Jen and I started a new blog that everyone should check out. (http://internationaltag.blogspot.com)

Here's the description:
"Canadian Jen posts a picture, then Scottish Carol posts a picture of the same thing (only Scottish). Then Carol posts a pic of something else, then Jen posts a pic of the same thing (only Canadian). And one day, with luck, we'll have a photo blog that compares Burlington, Ontario, Canada with Glasgow, Scotland in some interesting way."
t all started with squirrels and we've now covered street signs, "crosswalks" and now we're on post boxes lol.

So bad at blogging!

Blogging is hard... I always seem to come up with an alternative to doing it. And it's not that I don't want to, it's just I never get around to it lol.

So what's been happening?, I hear you cry...

Well, not really much exciting. The sun's been shining a lot, in fact, it's almost been (dare I say it?) Hot!! I was at the gym tonight and even with the fans on, it was boiling!! Still, surely sweating off the weight is good, right? Hahaha, and speaking of the gym, I'm not weighed myself in ages. I'm almost scared to! I don't think I've lost any more weight. Last time I checked I was 6lbs from my target weight which is pretty good. And since I started this routine I've lost 8lbs so I'm more than half-way which is good. Motivation still hasn't really kicked me up the backside yet, but I'm hoping it will soon!

Work is crazy ~ the usual ~ especially this month. I'd better not say too much here though, don't want the press hounding me lol. Btw that reminds me. I found a clip on YouTube of a guy, pissed 'cos his conviction wasn't overturned by us, who had chained himself to the doors of the office here and had to get cut free and escorted off my Police! Lol. It's a mad place!

Ok ER is about to come on, so I'll end here...

Onesies, 10 Years & My Birthday

Hi, how's it going? Can I please just take a moment to point you to Jen's blog... She has a beautiful photo of her Son, William, wearing his oh-so-cute onesie I designed! Here he is! Isn't he adorable??? I thought he was a cutie in the first photo but the second - wow!

Now you may have noticed my absence recently. Life's been crazy here ~ trying to juggle work, the gym, Avon, babygrows... But it's been totally worth it 'cos my chart is up again! I'm almost 1/3 of the way there! I added my Avon commission from my first order. And I started my next round last night so hopefully that'll be successful as well. :o) Mum and Dad are away on holiday today so I'm taking this week off work to chill. I'm going through to cat-sit Socks and Mittens and take the opportunity to start eBaying again! So much to sell that didn't sell at the bootsale last weekend. And I must admit, I'm really starting to get withdrawal symptoms lol.

One other piece of news this week... Alison and I have been grat friends now for 10 years!! We went out to dinner on Wenesday night to celebrate a Decade of Friendship. :o) After a Starbucks, we headed to Le Monde in Edinburgh's George Street (super fancy!) where we had thee nicest 3-course meal! I had assorted warm breads with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to start, followed by lobster cannelloni. Alison had pitta bread with humous and chicken tossed in pasta. Then in true girlie fashion we finished it off with a milk and white chocolate fondue with fresh fruit and marshmallows. :o) Delicious! I took some photos but it was quite dark and I didn't have my good camera, so they didn't really come out. Great pictures on their website though. :o)

OMG I can't believe I haven't blogged about my birthday! Well I turned 27 last Saturday so I'm really starting to feel old now. :o( Mind you, I'll never be quite as old as Derek! Lol. On the Friday night Derek met me after work and we went for a tapas dinner at La Tasca in Glasgow's Renfield Street, which was delicious. I'd been there a couple of times for lunch with people from work but this was Derek's first trip and he loved it! Then on Saturday after the bootsale, Alison and Jason came through (Alison being my sister and Jason being her boyfriend) and we all went for dinner at China Buffet King at XScape. It's an amazing place! A real ski-slope, adventure golf, sky-high assault course, wall-climb etc, and loads of bars and restaurants. We could see the ski-slope from where we were dining which was pretty cool. I have some photos to post so I'll get them on here soon. I got loads of nice presents. Derek and I had decided not to do gifts this year but when I got back in the car after La Tasca he presented me with a beautiful orchid and a carton of smoothie. Most girls like flowers and chocolates but he knows me better than anyone lol. Amongst other things, I got money (which is always good), two bags, a lovely pen set, jewellery, gift vouchers and a Tatty Teddy top.

Ok I think this is long enough. I'm gonna go help Derek tidy up and then attempt to sift my way through the bootsale remnants lol. Hmmm easier said than done lol.

Oh one last thing ~ I've decided I'm going to keep the photo blog but only post occassionally. If I get a chance this week I'll start on revamping that.

Have a great weekend!

Take a Vote!

Hiya, just a quick poll. I've kinda stopped my 2007 daily photo blog on here 'cos I really didn't think anyone was looking... So can I take a vote?

Who here wants the daily photo to resume? No worries if you don't... I have my Glasgow DP Blog up and running anyway. :o) Show your hands now! :oD

Toronto Chart Update

In case you haen't noticed, I've updated my Toronto chart at the side. With the bootsale profits I was able to add another 3.1% on to my total. It's certainly not much but I'm getting there. My Avon sales this month should take it up another 5% and baby business sales another 3% but I'll add them when I know exactly what I made ~ hopefully next week! Gotta keep making money!! Lol.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Happy Birthday Me!!!
27 today!
I'm so old... :o(

Google Funny

My good friend Wendi sent me this and I had to share... :o)

Go to Google Maps, type in New York, New York and click on search.
When the map refreshes, click on direction from here and type in Paris, France.
Scroll down to line 24 and have a good old laugh!!!

Oh, and for reference... I typed in Glasgow to Toronto... Girls, according to Mr Google, if I left now in my car I'd arrive in Toronto in 29 days 22 hours and would have travelled over 4,000 miles (and gone via France!!) so thank goodness for KLM lol.

Rain Rain Go Away...

I did it! I did it! I did it! I met my target of £200 Avon sales! In fact I broke it! I'm at £205.25 at the moment and I still have at least another 2 orders to get in which is fab! So that's another 4.6% I can proudly add to my Toronto fund! Yay!!
On top of that I got another two baby clothing orders confirmed. Again, one from the same person the last huge order came from and the other from my friend Michelle. :o) I'm thinking I should now be coming up with a website and brand name etc, but I actually quite like how word of mouth is working. :oD Plus there are no overheads lol.
Really looking forward to the boot sale tomorrow as well. Between Mum, Derek's Mum, Derek, Ali and I we have enough stuff to fund my Toronto trip 10 times over lol. Well, probably! It's almost always sunny on my birthday so I reeeeeeeeeally hope the rain stops! It's rained here for the past three days straight and I so don't want it to be rained off tomorrow. I want people to take my junk and give me money lol.

Please all have your fingers crossed for dry weather tomorrow and your toes crossed for sunshine 'cos that would be a real bonus!

Hahaha, just as I was typing that I looked outside and saw blue sky but then a big raincloud started to blow over! Argh!

Rain, rain, go away... come again another day! :o)

WD-40

After getting a little fed up with all the talk about missing Madeleine in the news, I decided to go looking for something a bit more light-hearted. As usual this comes from the Barbados Nation News:

Jamaicans using WD-40 for Arthritis Pains

KINGSTON – If you have an annoying, squeaking door hinge or a corroded screw to loosen you'd probably reach for a can of WD-40. But what about a painful, squeaking knee or creaky elbow?
The Sunday Observer has learned that WD-40, better known for releasing rusted screws and lubricating corroded metal, is increasingly being used by Jamaicans to relieve arthritis and joint pains.
Some people are still willing to look past the warnings of possible irritation to the skin.
When the manufacturers said on a WD-40 tin that it could loosen rusty parts, stop squeaks and free sticky mechanisms, they meant metal – not knees and elbows. But the slick substance appears to be working for human parts as well.
"I suffered from arthritis pain, sometimes my knees just couldn't move. I've been using Voltaren, but it hasn't been helping, so I went on the Internet to seek a home remedy," one middle-aged woman who requested anonymity told the Sunday Observer last Friday. "That's when I saw it (the suggested 'remedy')."
The arthritis sufferer said she sprayed the metal lubricant on her knees, and within minutes the pain had stopped and she was able to walk unhindered.

Sunshine after the Rain

After such a disastrous attempt at getting rich through the craft fair, I feel more determined now than ever before to earn more money! All of a sudden I'm not afraid of hard work ~ which is a little weird for me to say the least lol. Mum gave me a PJ top a while back which reads "Wanna be rich but don't wanna work!" *Lol*.

So my latest venture (thanks go out here to Michelle for the idea!) is to become an Avon rep! :D I thought about it, I enquired online and now I'm fully qualified. By qualified I mean I've been given brochures and order forms and my own territory which consists of 2 streets totalling 112 houses. Market research shows that approximately 32 of these will be Avon 'friendly' homes and so potential customers. I've been thinking about sales targets, and it's really too hard to come up with one until I get out there. But so I have an aim, I would like to sell £200 worth of Avon products in this first campaign. So I went out on Friday night to do my first run and then again tonight to do my second. So far (including sales through family and friends) I've sold £171 in orders. Not too bad! :) When I get my order in next weekend I should be able to update my chart! :D Oh, and one more thing ~~~ I'm going to a car boot sale on my birthday as a seller with Derek, Mum and Mum-in-Law so fingers crossed for a big update then!! :D

Finally, this could be working out. :o) :o)