Thief

I use a commercial shared kitchen for the business, and it's a great concept. Except that it's a little like living with roommates again. You never quite know who's drinking your milk or eating your frozen burritos. And you want to maintain a good relationship, so if someone drinks your milk here and there, who cares?

So anyhow, I bought a case of mini chocolate chips. 12 bags in a case. So when we open it up and use one, there should be 11 left. 12-1=11. Basic math. But... there were only 10.

Okay, no big deal, I tell my bakers. It's fine. Just one bag. It's bound to happen. It's like $2. Whatever.

And then we go back the next time. I count. Only nine bags.

My one baker says, "Leave a nasty note! They're STEALING from you! From US!!!"

I mulled over it for the next couple of hours and finally wrote this:
Hi. :) We're so flattered that you love our chocolate chips so much. Next time we go in on an order, we can definitely order more for you. Just call us ahead of time: xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thank you so much!
And then I left it inside the box.

I don't want to be rude, and I really don't want to rock the boat. But honestly, I feel a little bit like Ross:



I don't know. Maybe I was too snarky.

The last tag I'll ever do...

The 8 things tag. (Chari, you owe me.)

8 favorite TV shows:
24
House
Beverly Hills, 90210 (the original)
So You Think You Can Dance?
The Amazing Race
What Not to Wear
Designed to Sell
Friends

8 things I did yesterday:
Printed out a ton of cupcake and buttercream frosting recipes
Made cute little binders for my new employees
Played race cars and basketball with C
Spent 2 minutes in between bites talking to my husband
Baked for 3 hours at a commercial kitchen
Spent way too much time on Facebook
Brought home a carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting for D
Drove by Rod Blagojevich's home in Chicago

8 things I'm looking forward to:
Getting my new glasses
Getting the business website up and running
Having another strategy session with my publicist!
Finding time to read "Your Marketing Sucks."
Going to Leipzig and Prague with D this summer
Having a son who is able to zip up his jacket by himself
Having my husband around more once he finishes school
Summertime in Chicago!

8 favorite restaurants:
Florentine's - Cupertino
Kirala - Berkeley
Joy Yee - Chicagoland
Lou Malnati's - Chicagoland
Haku - NYC
Rodizio - SLC
That Kiosque Flottant on the Seine - Paris
Sparta's Pizza and Spaghetti - Bothell, WA

8 Things on my wish list
I wish we could afford to move to Lincoln Park
and put C in private school
and hire a personal chef
who goes grocery shopping. (That's 4.)
I wish I could lose 5 more pounds
and keep it off
and increase my VO2 so that I can run a 5k
and shrink down just one more size. (That's 4 more.)

Is this a bad sign?

So I'm starting a cupcake business. If you're reading this, you probably already know this.

Well, I went to a Chinese buffet today for lunch, and even THEY'VE hopped on the cupcake bandwagon. Because it complements greasy, garlicky food so well.

Clockwise from top left: fried green beans, teriyaki chicken, Chinese donuts, pork potstickers, and yellow cake from a box topped with gritty shortening-based frosting with air-brushed food coloring and sprinkles.

I hope this isn't a bad omen or something. Next thing you know, we'll see them at Indian buffets on Devon.

The Chinese donuts though? Pretty darn good. I'll keep that idea tucked away in case this cupcake thing doesn't work out.

Brainstorming 101

D learned a brainstorming technique in his marketing class on Tuesday.

It might not be new to you, especially if you're clever or creative. (I'm neither, so it was kind of an "Aha!" moment for me.)

Here's how it works:
1. Identify a problem to brainstorm a solution for. (Mine: product packaging)

2. Think of a movie that's totally unrelated to the problem. Or a place, or a song, or a book - whatever.

3. Name a few tangible associations to this movie.

4. Pick an association and brainstorm ideas about potential relationships to the problem.

5. Repeat.

6. Highlight a few ideas that you think might work and put them all together on one page so you can focus on those solutions and come up with something totally extraordinary.
Why this works: you're forced to think of totally unconventional, unrelated solutions to the problem. (This has always been a huge challenge for me. I'm just not that creative.)

This MBA education might have just paid for itself with this one concept alone. (Okay, that was not supposed to sound sarcastic.) But I do love being the beneficiary of great ideas from great marketing professors.

Kitchen Surgery

When we bought our house, our kitchen needed some serious help.

We went from this
to this.
Not saying it's awesome, but it was at least a fairly good upgrade.

Fast forward 2 years. Today, our kitchen looks like this:
Apparently, a clog froze mid-pipe, caused two six-inch cracks in the PVC, and then as the weather "warmed up" to 25 degrees, defrosted all over our basement floor.
Home ownership really isn't all it's "cracked" up to be. (I kill myself.)

Oh, and for some reason, I found this, in my handwriting, on the wall.
I'm clearly delirious, because all I can think of is shawty:

Note Taking

Once in my life, I took notes like this:


And now, this is what note-taking has become in our household:

I think the bold boxes mean "this is important." So do the arrows. I think.

BlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

I recently got an offer for a free subscription to Strategy + Business Magazine. "Sure, why not?" I thought.

So I opened it. Here's what I found for the next 51 (I kid you not) pages:


Finally, on the page 52-53 spread, something I can relate to - a graphic image!!


But then, I turned the page.


Not to knock the magazine, but really, I don't think I'm in their core demographic. I need pictures. Celebrity pictures, even.

So I think my designer might hate me...

I have a brilliantly talented graphic designer for my business who I trust implicitly. She's extremely competent and clever. She might not think I think so, though. Because I've been totally impossible to work with lately.

First, I sent over a bunch of girly websites that have frills and lace and scallops and dots and zigzags and pretty patterns. I said, "I like these!"

Then, I sent a minimalist masculine website with flash that I decided I wanted her to work with. I said, "I want this! But make it more girly." She did exactly what I asked.

I said, "Hmm. Not exactly. I'll send over a rough draft of what I'm looking for." Then she edited and sent me rough draft version 4. Something's still not quite right.

So in desperate search for something - anything, I just spent the last two hours googling "feminine girly web designs" and wondering if the whole frills and lace and scallops and dots and zigzags and pretty patterns thing is the direction we should head.

I'm going to bed tonight, but not before I shoot this message over to her:
"i know this is just the 2 am talking, but...
if you were to just design from scratch, what would it look like?

i'm just curious. don't change anything. i'm just curious because i trust your gut.

oh... and please don't quit on me! lol"

I hope she doesn't reply in the morning with her resignation.