A couple of days ago I received a shipment from Blinds Chalet. It’s beautiful wood blinds! We finally got to put them up on one of the windows and I wanted to share this with you. The color, which is hard to discern from my poor digital shot, is a golden oak. These are real wood blinds and when they’re closed they really block a lot of light. I still have my old mini-blinds on the window next to this one, and you can easily see the difference in looks and style between the two.

I want these all through my house! They are so rich and elegant looking. They came with all the hardware and the wood valance. We put them up in about 15 minutes, so they are really easy to install.

This set is right behind my chocolate brown leather couch and it looks great there. I love things like this that make decorating easy peasy! The slats of the blinds are a little over two inches wide so they really have a stylish but old fashioned look to them that I love so much.

Blinds like these and many other selections can be purchased from BlindsChalet.com. The ordering process was super easy. They take you through it all, step by step, on their website. They can custom create blinds to fit your large or odd sized windows. Or, you can order stock sizes if that’s what you need.

These were delivered to my front door by FedEx in a very timely manner, which I really appreciate a lot. I was so excited when I got home from work and saw that box on my porch! I just can’t say enough good things about this company and about their product.

Technorati Tags: wood blinds, leather couch, BlindsChalet.com, FedEx

Posted: August 30th, 2007 under Shopping, Review.
Comments: 2

Where I work, we get mystery shoppers at least once a month. Some of them are very nit-picky but most of the time they are pretty generous in their assessments. Of course, we get points off for major things like poor cleanliness in the store or a bad attitude from crew or managers. That’s as it should be! Yet, most of the time we get great scores and those aforementioned issues don’t ever arise. We work very hard to make our restaurant clean, safe, sanitary, and friendly with fresh food and excellent and timely service.

That’s what you, the customer, expects when you walk in the door, isn’t it? Good food, good service in a timely manner, and a clean place to eat. Our corporation uses a mystery shopping service to help us achieve and maintain these goals. We never know who the shopper will be and we don’t know until about 24 hours after the mystery shop how we did point-wise. These services are key to any restaurant maintaining high standards of excellence in their food and service.

Since we don’t know who the mystery shopper will be or when he/she will show up, it keeps us on our toes continually.

Technorati Tags: cleanliness, attitude, restaurant, customer, mystery shop, mystery shopper

Posted: August 30th, 2007 under Work, Business and finance.
Comments: none

I have never been much of a risk-taker in my life. I’ve heard for years “You can’t walk on water until you step out of the boat“, and while that’s true, I have difficulties applying it to myself. I’m always very conservative with my money, my job, my shopping, and most of my decisions. I tend to pull back from anything that appears to be a risk.

If I’m ever to own a piece of land and a cabin, about which I’ve frequently posted, I’m going to have to take some risks. I’m going to have to decide that I can’t continue operating on a “what if” philosophy. At least, not to the extent I have in the past.

Now I’m not saying I’ll jump in up to my neck in impossible-to-pay-for debt. I will definitely be weighing the options and figuring the best way to go about purchasing my dream. But so far, all I’ve done is dream and it’s time to make a plan and put it into action. At my age, time is quite limited as to how long I’ve got to pay something off!

Technorati Tags: risk, conservative

Posted: August 30th, 2007 under Flights of fancy, Business and finance.
Comments: none

Youth today are under so many more stresses than I ever had as a teenager. They are barraged from all sides with temptations of drugs, alcohol, sex, appearance, and fashion. They are made to feel that if they don’t look a certain way, dress a certain way, or act a certain way, they aren’t going to be popular.

As an adult, I can see that they have a skewed perspective and seeking the approval of those who encourage inappropriate behavior is a losing battle. However, they are young and can’t really understand that. They can’t really understand that in the scheme of life, being popular in high school or fitting in with a certain crowd isn’t the end-all and be-all they think it is.

Some teens are so drawn in that they lose themselves completely and need help from outside sources who are experts in building teen self confidence. They need help to understand that they are indeed unique, and not “unique just like everybody else”. Sometimes they need help to see how special they really are, to find their unique gifts and talents, and to know the real contribution they have to make as an individual.

Teen stress and depression are very real life issues that can’t be swept under the rug. Do you know a teen who needs help seeing his or her own real value as a person?

Technorati Tags: stress, teenager,