Truckee Was A Blast!

We arrived in Truckee on Friday and Mason and Kyle got off to a great start playing in the snow.
Building an igloo or snow fort is always a good thing to do. I went out to look at it and when I looked inside I said to Mason, "There's a rock in there." He said, "No mom, it's just a hard spot. We'll dig around it." Laughing! A rock or a hard spot? Same-same. I say despite the six year old drama we're currenly dealing with, he is an optimist at his core..."We'll just dig around it."

We grilled sausages while the kids played in the snow. That grill mounts onto the back of Greg's truck. Sweeet!

Dave and I slipped away to North Shore Lake Tahoe for a little bit of cuddling and kissing on a winter beach! Okay, it's not really a winter beach as much as it is a beautiful beach in the winter...and come to think of it, it's no longer winter!

GAMES! The kids live for this part of the Truckee house!

We taught Kyle how to ski and Mason just keeps getting better. Lisa L. spent some time on the slopes with both boys and I'm so grateful! She's a great teacher! "Spread the peanut butter!"

The Garcia's homemade cheesecake with Dave's apple-cherry pie filling on top. The whipped cream goes without saying!

Just another ZipperBack Kid!

The best part of the weekend...magazine, slippers, hot tea, in front of a fire! Happy Monday!

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring!

Yep, it's official, springtime is here. It's been gorgeous outside. Mason and I made the most of the sunshine and got to work outside on several projects. We brushed the rust off the outside fireplace, gave it a fresh coat of black paint, and cleaned it out so it's ready to make S'mores. We also repainted an outdoor patio set I picked up last fall. Can you guess what color we painted it? Go on, take a guess! I have to recover the seats and find a table-top, I would love to have a piece of stone of some kind, but that's proving to be challenging. I went to Home Depot to see if I could order a piece of counter top material but they told me no. Holy cow! Really? I also went to A&A Stepping Stone and found a beautiful piece of ocean slate. It needs to have the edges ground to smooth them out and I don't know what kind of labor intensive project that will turn out to be. Then if that works out, I need to have the holes drilled for the screws and hope that the stone doesn't break. Sheesh! So close and yet, so far. In any case, it will be gorgeous when I finish it, I'm certain of that!

Mason got a sleepover invite so that meant "Free Babysitting!" I dropped him off at 4 PM and went right to the nail salon where I got a pedicure. From there, I did some shopping at Old Navy (30% off everything!), met Lisa Leis for dinner and then we went to see The Bounty Hunter. As the night was wrapping up and I was happily reflecting on my girls night out, I got the perfectly timed call that Mason wanted to come home. All in all, a great night!

So now we head into a new work week and I'm sure my lists will be long. I'm energized though because we had a wonderful weekend and that always makes it easier to go back to work. One day soon, I hope to be doing work that I look forward to doing and in essence, it won't be work at all! Happy Spring!

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy Spring-Forward!

It's not officially spring yet, but having moved our clocks forward makes it feel like it is. We had a lovely weekend, a nice mix of work and play. I spent much of the day on Saturday installing Quicken 2010 and converting my existing accounts. I'm not completely finished but I have to say, the newer version is quite impressive. Later, Mason and I went out for dinner with Cris and Taylor, and then cuddled up to watch Wild America (great movie!). Sunday was slow. I slept in, read the paper, did some writing, and then stuffed envelopes, 200 of them to be exact. I'm doing one final push for glove orders by mailing out my sell sheet that will be outdated next season. It's a nice two-sided printed piece that in a hand addressed envelope, I feel will be noticed. Needless to say, the weekend was over before I knew it.

I feel so out of touch with many of you. I've been working all of my waking hours either selling gloves, working with families trying to get loan modifications, and the long list of things that need to be done to keep the Partak household running smoothly...okay, just running. I don't kid myself thinking that my life will miraculously slow down to a leisurely let's-have-coffee-and-chat pace, but once our glove order is placed for the 2010-2011 season, it will at least slow to cruising speed! There will be more time to talk on the phone and catch up.

I'm not sure what the forecast is where you live, but for those of us in northern California, we are looking at sunshine and 75 degrees all week. With this kind of bright outlook, it will be easy to make this week pop and bloom with progress! Happy Monday!

OMG!

Yikes! It's almost Friday!

I'm realizing that January through April is our busy time at ZipperBack Gloves. I have so many balls in the air right now that it amazes me that it's Wednesday night and no Monday Motivator went out. I have so much I want to share with you but not one ounce of gumption to write it. I will be sending out an Intentional Winning newsletter (quarterly for 2010) this weekend and I will make sure it is chock full of news and updates.

For now, let me leave you with one of my favorite Thomas Edison quotes, "The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense."

I hope you share my belief that I have all three pieces! Good night or welcome to Thursday!

I'm Tired!

Welcome to Monday,

I'm tired! We had a super busy weekend but it was worthwhile! Saturday was spent running errands and preparing for Sunday's ZipperBack Glove photo shoot at Soda Springs ski resort. Even though I've done this kind of stuff for years, it still amazes me how much preparation, organizing, and plain old hard work goes into a single event.

Let me recap my weekend in a simple list format:

1. Cleaned both bathrooms
2. Took comforters to the laundromat - put in to wash
3. Bought gift certificates (blank) from the stationary store
4. Stopped at the farmers market for Bowowlicious for Spencer
5. Went to the bank to cash a check
6. Went to another bank to deposit a check
7. Went to a third bank to deposit cash (from the first bank)
8. Stopped into beauty supply store to buy hair color
9. Back to the laundromat to put the comforters in the dryer
10. Got the oil changed in the Subaru
11. Went to a store who sells ZipperBack Gloves to restock them
12. Went to Costco to get lunch for everyone attending photo shoot on Sun.
13. Filled the car up & washed the windows
14. Came home to put sandwich platter in the refrigerator
15. Went to local consignment store for snow clothes for photo shoot (Found them!)
16. Stopped at ski rental store for snowboard and helmets for shoot
17. Got my nails done
18. Got saucers, skis, and props together to be loaded in the car
19. Sorted and packed snow clothes making sure they were all clean
20. Sent out final e-mail to all participating with info/instructions
21. Replied to e-mail from Lori titled, "Taxing Questions" about our return (about 12 ques).
22. Packed "The" bag for Sunday, you know, the one that has everything you might need!
23. Packed Mason's bag of extra clothes/shoes
24. Did laundry (this goes on all day everyday, it's not really fair that it's listed here)
25. Colored my hair
26. Updated the photo release and printed them for Sunday

Sunday I was up at 5 AM and double checking all the stuff I did on Saturday to make sure we didn't forget anything. We didn't. All the families who said they were coming showedup and from what I could see, it was organized, chaotic, joy! Planet Kids is a snow park designed for kids under 8 years old. They have little hills for skiing, another one for snow boarding, inner-tube like carousel type rides, a giant mountain of snow the kids could climb and slide down, and more! We kept the kids in a group as best we could and let them play. Monica was awesome, it seemed like she was in a million places all at the same time! I can't wait to see the pictures, but have no doubt they will be incredible. I'll be sure to post some of them in the next few weeks!

So you can see why I am tired. But alas, there is no rest for the weary! Today we regroup and head to Reno for a trade show that runs Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Mike is heading up tonight to set up and work the show on Tuesday. I will work it on Wednesday, and Dave will work it and tear down on Thursday. Oh, and don't forget, Bon Jovi is in town on Tuesday night....I can't wait! I won the concert tickets, actually, I won three pair of tickets so a group of six of us are going. That's a story all by itself for another day. I'm sure I will have lots to share on next Monday and with all we have going on this week, I bet I will still be tired!

Let me leave you with this thought; we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. Are you using as many of your waking hours to optimize your future? It's not, "I don't have time." It's, "I'm choosing to use my time doing [fill in the blank]." Are you using your time to get you where you want to go? Oprah, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and every other highly successful person has the same hours in a day that you do. This time next year is coming no matter what. Where will you be?