The younger generation uses BFF (Best Friends Forever) a lot.  Even my three year old Grand Daughter says that I am her best friend, but only for a short while and then her Mommy is her best friend or her Grand Dad is her best friend.  Ken and I really do have best friends forever and we just spent the evening with them at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  Joan and I met when our daughters, who are now 43 started first grade.  She also had another daughter who was the exact age of our youngest daughter.  We signed up for a Red Cross course so that we could help out in the school clinic.  We hit it off from the very start and so did our husbands.  We have enjoyed each others company for 37 years.  We have vacationed together, went to many NASCAR races together, laughed together and even  supported each other through the death of our parents.  Joan is who I call when I share good news or sometimes bad news and she does the same.  When our children were young and struggling to make ends meet Ken and Tom helped each other out with repairs on cars, houses and anything else that needed to be repaired.  Once we were in Daytona Beach on a shoestring vacation and the timing chain went out on our car.  The dealership said that it would take several days to get the parts so the guys decided to fix it themselves.  The kids played in the ocean and in a few hours the car was fixed and we all cleaned up and went out to dinner.

I think that if you have one BFF you are blessed but in our case we are blessed with two BFF.  Happy New Year to old friends and new friends.  I hope that 2011 will be a good year for our nation, for our employees, for our family and of course for our BFF.

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2010 has been one of the worst years of my life in some ways and in other ways it has been inspirational.  The worst part is that my husband of 48 years had a massive stroke in February.  A stroke forever, in a second, changes your life and the life of the ones that love you.  Ken is not only the love of my life but my business partner.  I have learned many things since February.  The first and foremost is that each day is precious and we should not take anything for granted.  I have learned that God’s Grace is sufficient for the today and that is how we have to really live our life just for this day and get accomplished the things that must be done for this day.  I have learned that I can do things that I never have had to do before as I have suddenly had to take on the responsibility of maintenance for business, home and automobiles.  Not that I am turning screws and changing oil, although I have learned to do minor things, but I have had to see that those things were handled.

I have been blessed beyond belief with a supportive, loving family.  It has brought us closer together and we have all analyzed our priorities in life and decided that things we previously had thought were important just were not that big of deal.  I have had support from incredible friends,  from those we have had as friends for 38 years, church friends and business friends.  Finally I have to give a lot of credit to our employees who I feel are my family.  We are actually a family in all ways.  We laugh together, we pray together, we support each other in good times and bad times.  When I have to be out of the office, I don’t have to worry if things are being handled, I just know that they are going on as if I were there. They have stepped up and taken on any task that has needed to be done.

We have had a major life changing event but God has blessed us and helped us get through the bad times.  So come on 2011, I am ready for a good year.

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According to the USPS magazine Deliver,“people in the South are more business friendly to direct mail marketing than those in the North-east and Midwest” says Ted Jenkin, co-CEO of oXYGen Financial Group, Alpharetta, GA. These are a few of the ways that direct mail marketing helps make Southern consumers more likely to buy certain products and services .

25% of Southerners are more likely to purchase insurance as a result of direct mail.

10% of Southerners are more likely to purchase furniture as the result of direct mail.

9%  of Southerners are more likely to purchase groceries as the result of direct mail.

31% of consumers in the South look to the mail for coupons.

There are 41.8 million households in the Southern region of the United States. 67% of the households are made up of families.  83% of the people living in the South in 2008 were living in the same residence one year later. 

To me all of this means that the South is a great place for direct mail and that is only one thing that I like about the South.  To be in Knoxville, TN today you would not know that this is the South.  We have had some unusual weather this winter and it is not even officially winter yet.  We have been having near record low temperatures and snow.  What is up with that?

Thanks to Deliver magazine for all the great information on mailing.

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My Grandson, Sam, spent the night with us last night.  He is thirteen and is quite a bit taller than me already.  I picked him up at school and we had our usual stop at McDonald’s for a snack.  We did this routine quite a bit when he was younger but not that he is older, I don’t get this privilege as often.  He ordered, what for most people would be a meal.  He assured me that it would not affect his dinner later.  We went to the grocery store for some items and I picked up the chocolate chip slice and bake cookies, his favorites.  I baked the cookies for him and later that night we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.  He was right, it did not affect his dinner as he ate a full meal and then came home and had the chocolate chip cookies.  I had forgotten how much boys that age can eat.  Ken, Sam and I watched TV and talked out the Titans playing the Colts.  Just everyday things, but how precious they are.  I had been having some rough days lately and I was driving home from work and thought to myself, I would like to just have one happy day.  Well the Lord granted me that happy day, thanks to my Grandson Sam.  Savor the simple things in life, I am going to make that a goal for every day.

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