are you sure?

The oldest got the email with her move in date. Not a Friday as I'd hoped, but a Thursday. Okay. Fine. Are you sure?

I hope this is the final adjustment to the move in schedule. We have canceled one reservation and made another one, this time at a hotel right next to campus. So in one way, the change was a benefit for us as we now won't have an hour drive the morning of the move in.

The kid is going to meet with her roomie and begin to nail down their packing lists.

Are you sure this is happening? Yep. I think we are sure. Ready or not, here she comes.

glitch in the matrix

Okay, so I thought we had the rest of the summer figured out in regards to timing, schedules, days off etc. Of course, sorority rush is now putting a big glitch in our matrix.

Due to overwhelming numbers of young women participating, they've moved the start of rush back one day. So it will now begin on Friday night instead of Saturday night. Which also means, according to their letter, that move in dates will be reconfigured.

My guess is she will move in on Friday morning now. Which means we need to be down that way Thursday night. I will need to take another day off work. Great.

It also means that the youngest will need to spend the night somewhere so he gets off to school on Friday as he should. The middle kid has a ton of soccer stuff that week, so she will be out of pocket and I don't want to add more to her plate.

Guess I need to look at my vacation day spread sheet yet again. I think I need to channel my inner Neo. Mr. Anderson is now a major SEC university.

school supplies

The Target sale flyer in Sunday's paper contained the first school supply sales I've seen so far this summer. Ugh.  The whole 'get ready for school' push is coming. Fast.

And to hammer the point home that summer is basically over, soccer tryouts are today. This year, unlike the previous two years, only one soccer girl is heading off to the field to show them her stuff.

We did the biannual closet, dresser, shoe rack purge yesterday. Both girls hacked through their things with a fair amount of ruthlessness and filled several bags with items that are too small, too worn out, or out of style.

Yes, my girls do wear things out, just one of the hazards of soccer. Some stains don't come out and after a while the tee shirts that have a good amount of grime and grunge need to be pitched. Never fear though, they have enough tee shirts to pretty much go a month without repeating. I swear tournament shirts multiply like rabbits when the dresser drawer is closed.

In other shopping news, we have a list of items to procure over the next month for the oldest and her upcoming adventures in dorm living.

Plus, the boy is going to need some serious back to school clothes shopping. He had grown more than a couple inches since school dismissed for the summer. None of his jeans fit. Thank goodness he can start school in shorts.

Yep. Welcome to July.

hiatus

Taking the next few days off from blogging. May spend some more time over at Pinterest.  Happy Independence Day!

melting

Hot. Hotter. Hottest.

Those brief few hours we had on the gulf shore were wonderful. I'd give a lot to be able to step out some sliding doors onto a balcony and watch the morning break over the gulf.

Instead, I'm stepping out the front door into the mid-south heat and humidity in order to walk the dog. Then it is a day full of errands, including taking our van to the shop for a check-up. Thankfully the funny noise started at the town limits and not in another state.

It is Monday.

buzzwords

I was working on some content yesterday. That was how I thought of it, which when I realized that was the label in my head, I laughed. I wasn't working on article, features, stories, letters....nope, it was content.

Just a couple of weeks earlier, my boss and I made a list of the current buzzwords in the communications universe. I don't have enough coffee in me to recreate the list, but 'content' is one. It is often used in the following phrases: editorial content, content curation, and editorial content curation. Heck, 'curation' is a new one. Not curator...that would be the person doing the curation.....Ha! I see curation used all the time in reference to social media. We must curate our content!

Buzzwords sneak into our vocabulary. When you read journals, blogs, newspapers, magazines and other communication vehicles, you can't help but absorb these phrases. I really need to bring that list home and add the other phrases we identified.

****Here are more of these industry buzzwords, or as my blog friend Lisa said, jargon! That word escaped me at 5:00 a.m. this morning!******

Monetize organically
Best practices
Social media platforms

A long time ago, in another life it seems, a seminar I attended warned us of using bank-lingo when we talked to customers. That warning still applies today.

These buzzwords don't mean diddly to folks outside the industry.

Happy Thursday.

lift off

The magazine was given the green light by the BOT over the weekend, which means I have actual work to get done. We had a department meeting yesterday, a conference call with the media analyst/expert gal a few hours later and I sent the first draft of the new emailed newsletter template out for review.

Today my boss and I are sitting down ( may have to glue him to his seat ) and laying out the departments for the new magazine.

With an editorial advisory board being appointed, all science geeks, we need to have a road map for this magazine or we could end up in big trouble. They love to get off topic and need some strong management in order to keep them on task when it comes to things like this. Smart, smart people, but when it comes to this magazine, well, it isn't their realm of expertise.

That is what they have Journalism majors for! Time to start earning my money.