AA Blog

Ever since we changed t=out mailbox at out house, people are asking us about where we got our mailbox so that they too can go look for mailboxes they can install at their homes and/or businesses.  When we put up our whitehall mailboxes, I never imagined that it would be so noticed and attract so much positive feedback.  I simply thought it was a small upgrade to a new and better residential mailboxes, but I have been pleasantly surprised.

With the positive impact this has made, I am certain that all of my friends are now looking into upgrading their own address plaques at their homes as well as their businesses.  It is great that one can invest relatively little in replacing their current mailbox with custom mailbox posts, and get such a great impact on how their property improves in the way it looks.

If you really think about it, a home’s or business’ mailbox is one of the first things any visitor sees.  I think it does make an impression subconsciously and kind of sets the tone of what you expect to see when you are inside the building.  Think about it, if you are walking into a home with a rusty and broken down mailbox, your expectation of what you will encounter inside will not be that great.  Conversely,  if the mailbox is new and clean, you will not walk in with a negative preconceived notion of what the inside of the home will look like.

My wife’s birthday is right around the corner and I need to get her a gift.  This year I plan on getting her some shoes.  She likes them and I think I can pick out a pair or two that she would really like.  To help me understand which shoes are “in” I visited a number of women’s shoe blog to get an idea of what is in style and what women like, and was able to get pointed in the right direction.

The first pair of shoes I will buy are really not shoes, rather boots, hunter boots to be exact.  These are rain boots that she would never buy for herself, but if they come as a gift I think when will use them and be very happy with them.  The second pair of shoes I will get are the stuart weitzman shoes which she saw at the department store and was thinking about getting. I think these shoes will be the ones whe will really love and appreciate.

I have checked in her closet to get the right size and will go buy the shoes in a couple of days.  I just hope that they fit and are comfortable.  If not, she will have to exchange them for herself.

My buddy moved to Austin and bought a “fixer upper”.  He invited me down to see his new place and asked if I would help him with some of the fixing.  I agreed, and went to visit him during my next break.  When I got there, and saw his fixer upper, I knew we were in for a long weekend of some hard work.

The first thing we had to tackle was the bathrooms.  but because it was such a mess, we decided to look for tile cleaning and sealing austin contractors to come out and do the job.  Then we moved on to the the living room, which we realized had some serious water damaged floors. We decided this job was too big for us so we ended up calling a water damage and restoration austin company to take care of that job.  All that was left to do was get the carpets in the bedroom cleaned.  And since we already had workers there, we just decided to call the best carpet cleaning companies austin had to offer and put them to work too.

Now that all of the work on the house was going to be done by professionals, we decided to enjoy the back yard and made BBQ for the workers.  It turned out to be one of those memorable weekends.

My mother is throwing a baby shower for my sister and I am confused as to what to get her.  I like to get her something thoughtful that she could use with this baby and perhaps many more!

I asked several friends for ideas and nothing original came out of them.

I was first thinking of getting her a diaper trash, but thinking back, that wasn’t too useful.  besides, they really don’t work.  Then I thought about the most important thing for any parent, a stroller!! This was the perfect idea, and I started looking around for one.  I soon realized that buying a baby stroller, is almost like buying a car.  There are so many different models and types and safety features, that you can actually get one that fits the lifestyle of the parents.

My sister and her husband are avid joggers, so when I saw the jogging stroller, I knew right away that this was going to be what I would get them.  And it was!!  I figured this way they would be able to take the baby along on their jogs and enjoy it.  When I gave her the gift, she absolutely loved it and mentioned that this stroller was the most thoughtful gift I had ever given her.

We have started to buy many things online and have found it to be very cost beneficial.  We no longer need to go out of our way to shop for things and deal with the traffic, crowded malls, parking spaces and sales people.  We can buy almost anything we want in the comfort of our own home at our discretion.

One of the things in specific, that we now exclusively shop on line for is children’s clothing.  Shopping online for this is great because we can look at and compare a number of items and even apply coupons and specials.  one thing I really like is not having to go through a pile of clothes to find the size you are looking for.  You know right away if the size you need is available, so you do not have to waste time even thinking about buying that item if it is not available.

Some of the other features availabel on line is the ability to sort by price, this way you can look at only the items that are within your budget and select from among them as opposed to deciding if you would like to spend more on something than you have planned.

Shopping locally is the the new craze.  Well, actually it is the new old craze.  I think the reason for this is the fact that local shopping is very convenient.  It enables you to pick things up quickly and in familiar territory at places that are always “on your way”.

Say for instance you  want to plan an evening out with your friends and go to dinner, then for some cigars and then finish the night off at a bar.  The last thing you want to do is spend a big portion of the night driving from place to place. You want to be able to perform  a local search and decide on a local restaurant and a local bar and have all your friends meet you there at their convenience.The fact that your night out will be local will make it easier for you to go to these plavces and chances are you will feel more comfortable in the surroundings you are familiar with.

I personally think that staying local is also good for the neighborhood. The economic benefits of spending money in  your local area is helpful to everyone.  Local communities and neighborhoods is what gives areas character and build a community bond.

Christmas and new year’s just passed and Valentine’s day is right around the corner.  You know what that means right?  Yes…It is time to buy chocolates for your favorite Valentine!!!  This year I have already planned to buy my Valentine her favorite box of peanut brittle chocolates.

I have been getting chocolates for Valentine’s day very year for the past fifteen years and this year will be no different.  It is a gift that is appreciated and actually used (eaten).  Although the gift every year has been chocolate, a defferent and new flavor has always been selected as the gift. The best thing about giving the gift of chocolate, is that I can purchase several boxes and give them to different people, and it is always appreciated.  The other good thing about giving chocolate as a gift is that it can be given for almost any occasion, from a house visit, to a birthday or even an anniversary.

The cool thing about chocolate box gifts is that they are timeless too.  I remember my parents getting and giving boxes of chocolate as gifts, and now that I am an adult I too am doing the same thing.  As a matter of fact, I think my kids will be doing the same thing as well when they grow up.

If you are like me, a parent who takes lots and lots of pictures and prints them, you know that the most costly part of doing this is having to buy printer ink over and over again.  It does tend to get very costly.  As a result, I have started to look into alternate methods of purchasing HP printer ink.

To my surprise, I have found a number of online stores that offer discount printer ink and their quality is just as good, if not better than, as the ones I buy at the office stores.  I should have been buying discount ink long before now, I would have saved hundreds of dollars!  But I am happy I know about it now and can begin saving money on buying ink for my printer going forward.

I had always thought that  using discount ink would lead to printing inferior pictures.  However, believe me when I tell you that there is absolutely no difference between them.  I printed two of the same pictures and put them side by side and none of the fifteen people I showed could see any difference between the two images.  The only difference that I was able to see, was the fact that I paid less for the ink.  And, that is a good difference to have.

My wife remodeled our kitchen last year and I think it looks great.  However, she kept on insisting that something was missing, and it just did not seem complete.  I had no idea what she was talking about until last week when she showed up in the kitchen and had an enclume pot rack installed.

The funny thing was that when I first walked into the kitchen, I knew something was different but could not tell what it was right away.  The change was very subtle and at the same time very profound.  Adding enclume pot racks will definately enhance the look of any kitchen and the best part about it is that the addition of the enclume potracks is also a functional add on which adds more storage area to the kitchen.

This addition was not very expensive and it added a lot to the whole look of the kitchen.  The investment was definately worth it.  The kitchen now looks very neat and organized and has an openness to it.  Additionally, the pots hanging on the rack are very accessible and easy to get to when cooking.  Who would have thought this was going to make such a big difference.

We started a new online clothing company, and the best decision we have made so far was to use a fulfillment company to process and ship our orders.  Having this taken care of for us, has really freed us up to concentrate on growing the business.  We are confident that the fulfillment company will be able to handle our growth no matter how large we get or fast we grow.  That gives us a real comfort level to go all out in our business growth efforts.

A lot of the research we did indicated that having product fulfillment outsourced will actually save us money on overhead and labor, but most importantly will not hinder our growth.  This was a very important factor.  My partner and I are business folks and will concentrate our efforts in placing our products in major stores and do not want to worry about the day to day operations on the fulfillment end.

Outsourcing our order fulfillment has seamed to pay off so far!  The fact that our customers can actually call and speak to a live person representing us who is available 24/7, has really given us the image of being a bigger company than we actually are.  This perception has also helped us land a couple of national chains.  We are happy and moving full speed ahead.