so this is how it was in the olden days

our A/C went putz on saturday. my DH and i decided to brave it out until today. that wasn't very smart in the summer in texas. our house was a balmy 95. 6 F on sunday. some rooms were a cool breezy 93.4 F and i think i took 5 showers yesterday. my face is also breaking out today. this picture was from the break we took around dinner time - we ate out - see the smile on my face from the joy of A/C??? how do ppl in the north live without A/C when it gets hot??? i have so gotten soft since moving to the south...

luckily, everything is back to normal now. the A/C is humming and i am cool as a cuke...so i guess that means i have to get back to work huh?

i am awaiting my amazon.com order with my two CDs - michael buble " it's time" { side note<-- this was the dude i saw in a starbucks commercial and i didn't know if he was really a singer so i looked him up - and yup he is a smooth jazzy crooner} and sarah valenzuela's "lado este( this side)" { side note - i heard of her on NPR and was mesmerized by her voice - like a latin sarah mclaclan} CDs - hopefully soon. i am sure that my order right now is some where in amazon's big warehouse (or warehouses) and they are pulling my order to shoot me into the supply chain pool...

speaking of supply chain/ product design, here is a glimpse of how a Maya Road product goes from concept to actual items you can hold. the concept is simple:

1. come up with an idea
2. make a prototype
3. make refinements
4. do a trial production
5. make a whole bunch of it

BUT... the beast is in the details. in my former life in the corporate world, we worked on something called a stage gate process for developing new ideas to actual product. it is similar - a series of checkpoints before you get to the final product. what we do for MR is no different. but on a smaller scale. if you take the 5 steps above, it really breaks down even further into a complex web of other steps like this:

1. deb and caroline come up with a set of ideas
2. discuss, rediscuss- pros/cons/growth potential/feasibility
3. discuss the idea with our factory - can we do this? is it cost prohibitive?
4. repeat step 2 with answer from step 3 - decide colors/ design line
5. repeat discussion with factory- decide on prototype made
6. repeat step 5 until satisfied with product (this can be hard at times b/c you are trying to convey to someone your idea for a product and they have to understand enough to translate what you want into a product you want)
7. decide on packaging (how? /number?/style?/name (this one always gets us!)?/ product label design)
8. arrange logistics (this is a whole other discussion) - be it from asia or US, this is a whole long process
9. repeat for each product and repeat 2-3x a year for any new releases

alright with that, need to get back to work!