yes...

i still run with this belly! have a great sunday!

ah bellies...

well, i made this LO last night but my belly is MUCH bigger now! i feel like one of those webble/wobble toys - tip me over and i might just bounce to the ground and back up - LOL! my DH and i were just discussing how we could feel so much love for a person that we haven't met yet. we don't know what he will look like - will he have almond eyes like me and curly hair like his dad? will he have a fiery personality (like me) or be a laid back cat (like his dad). in the end it doesn't matter. he will be ours. and we can't wait!

my DH and i went for a short run the other night and he is going to HATE that i am saying this but he couldn't keep up with me and the baby (HAHA!) it was a shortie like 1-1.5 mile run but we were feeling good - only about 6 weeks left and i can't wait.

but enough about babies and back to business! if you entered the maya road contest that we ran this past month, you might be getting a call from me soon (wink wink). we are in the process of judging with the fab ladies of Scrapbook Answers magazine. the entries are amazing! thank you to all who entered!

and the second piece of business, we are working hard on the summer show - wait til you see what we are doing! (here is a hint, we will have more boy colors now b/c we will have our 2 new boy additions to the family - LOL!) - it is amazing to me how much girl stuff is out there that is such cute girl stuff and we want to make sure our boy kiddos get even kudos! but everything we are doing is stuff that deb and i love - that is one good thing about having your own company is your own creative control. the bad thing is looking at the oh $10,000 or $50,000 invoice staring you in the face. LOL!

creating again

i have been feeling crappy lately. i know that it is b/c i am getting close to the end of my pregnancy but the frequent urges to nap cuts into my running and then when i don't run i feel glum and i nap and the cycle continues. i know that my baby is needing all my energy so he can "plump" up in the next couple of weeks so i guess he can have my energy - LOL! i did manage to do a LO today. wow, i looked so tiny only 1 month ago! my belly is much bigger now! it almost feels like i can't expand anymore! i am getting fat in places i didn't know i had! it's all good. i know in a couple of months, i can get back into running and getting back into shape again. no hurry.

my sister and i were discussing the SBing industry the other day and how there is a fine balance of relationships that help you (and that you help) versus the business aspect of things. i am much more the relationship part of the business and deb tends to go more for the blood / guts of business. that isn't to say that we don't switch roles sometimes but that is what makes it work for us. one thing that we have noticed in this business (that is different from other industries) is that people are very cautious to offering constructive criticism when we ask for it. we aren't used to that. honestly for us, if we are asking for constructive criticism, don't tell us you love all of our stuff - tell us what you really love and really what we can improve on. it is so hard to judge yourself objectively.

i will admit though there is a good way and a bad way to offer constructive criticism. i can think of an instance from about 2 weeks ago - 2 customers asked us to change our invoice to include certain information - one sent an email THAT WAS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS that basically signalled SCREAMING to me. and honestly, that is a put off. there is a whole art to it. another customer called me the next day with the exact same change request but they said "hey here is a way that i thought ya'll could make your invoice better" - both delivering the same message but guess which one actually made the positive impact? we did make the change, BTW.

we know that we have many things to change to improve and Deb and I are working on that. it honestly is very difficult make the change from a tiny company to a mid-sized one in a period of 2+ years. we expect this year we will be more than a couple times bigger than we were last year. we struggle to manage that growth - here is a good way to sort of explain how we are trying to manage that growth:

you know when (at least in the US) when they are starting to expand a 2 lane road into a 4 lane road - it seems to take forever and it seems to be a bit late b/c by the time they have finished the 4 lane road, it really needs to be an 8 laner? that is where we are at now. but in my mind that is good - we aren't planning our expansion from a 2 lane company to an 8 lane company until we start to feel the growing pains of being a 4 lane company. it is so easy to just say let's make the jump from a 2 lane to an 8 lane but what if your business plan is bad and the market just can't support you being an 8 lane company and you can't financially support it? it is better to plan the growth and also feel the growing pains but also to be receptive to making changes to make it better.

it isn't easy at the end of the day b/c there are only 2 of us making some major decisions for the future of the company (our hubbies do offer input when asked - in fact, my DH might actually see a product this summer he brainstormed up a couple of weeks ago!) but we love it...

and the winner is...

... ok so we did the TP measuring and if you add the sheets up (and half and quarter sheets count), deb and i are officially (As of tuesday) 18.75 sheets of TP - that means we put the guesses of 19 in a hat and the winner is - Carmen aka TysMommy from S! . congrats!

for the other guessers of 19, we also have a surprise for you so email me also - jessica S and Rachel Greig.

and FINALLY for the TP measurements of David 1 and David 2, they came out at a slim 18 sheets! i am sure they are relieved that they are smaller (in total) than their wives! so the winner for that RAK is: Michele R. !

ya'll can email me at info@mayaroad.com with your contact info and i will get you something in the mail soon!

one more RAK update!

deb and i will do the belly measuring tonight! i feel like i have gained 3 pieces of toilet paper in the last week! oy!

but as a surprise, we are going to give away a second place RAK to the the person who guessed a number below BUT the number of pieces of TP = bellies of David 1 (my DH) + David 2 (Deb's DH) added together. i am sure they don't mind us revealing their sveltve figures but it might be more than Deb and mine combined! So no need to guess if you have already guessed but if you don't win the original guess, you could be close enough to the David bellies to win! LOL!

i will post the TP winners tomorrow!

update on the RAK below...

a couple more things i forgot to post, we will do the *official* measuring next TUESDAY evening so get your guesses in before TUESDAY! also, last night i did a trial meaurement last night.

then i asked my DH to measure his belly. using the same number of toilet paper sheets, my DH was only 1/2 sheet rounder than me at the belly! i was rolling on the floor laughing. he told me it wasn't funny b/c he is only slightly smaller than an 8 month pregnant woman.

perhaps that was the swift kick in the butt motivation he needed to get into shape (wink, wink)!

have you...

entered our contest? http://www.mayaroad.com/2006contest.htm the deadline is only 3 days away but we would love to see your entry...

so i was thinking about the whole baby shower thing and as crazy as it sounds, i am not going to have one. i think it is a combination of things - from having a lot of guy friends for the longest time to almost feeling uncomfortable getting things from people, my DH and i decided that this was best for us. but there is nothing like those crazy baby shower games! so i have one for all of you blog stalkers!

i played this one at a friend's shower a couple of years ago and i think it is hilarious. this time, i am putting it together with a twist. here is the game:

how many SHEETS of toilet paper do you think deb and my bellies are added together? basically we are going to do the perimeter of our bellies but measured in toilet paper sheets. since deb is about 10 states away from me the rules are - we will each use the toilet paper we have in the house to measure ourselves and we will add the 2 numbers together... as always with games like this, there is a PRIZE -for the person that is the closest! we will fill this beautiful coffee break tin below with ribbons and chipboards for the winner and i will send it to them! in the event that there is a tie, we will draw a name for the winner.

so think about it and post here to my blog - make sure you have some sort of ID instead of anon so i can reach you! good luck!

getting there....

wow, has it really been a week since i have posted? so many things going on - we literally have hundreds of orders going out our door. sometimes i play a guessing game with the rest of the MR clan - i say if we started at invoice number XYZ at CHA winter, where do you think we are now? NO ONE has been close. they are missing it by more than hundreds where we are! but that is good! we are growing and deb and i are very careful in how we grow...

speaking of growing, CHECK ME OUT! i am HUGE. no wonder it is hard to run and also hard not to go to the bathroom every 1/2 hour.

i am literally 2 months away from having our baby boy join us in this world and we cannot wait. this has been the week of picking names for him. we have (we think) picked him a wonderful chinese middle name and are working on his first name. at times, we wonder about the flow but how often do you get called by your first name, middle name and last name? my dad and mom did have to go back to the drawing board b/c at one point the first character in his chinese name that they were suggesting was spelled "Ho" which is really no big deal in chinese - i know a lot of people named "Ho" b/c it means river but David didn't want our kiddo to possibly be dealing with the stigma of having "Ho" as part of his name. We also had to spend about 1/2 an hour trying to explain what the slang "Ho" meant in English to my parents and they got the point. LOL!

in other news, we are diligently working on our summer products already! along with a new onsie our baby will have that says "product of Maya Road", we have so many amazing things planned for the summer - just you wait! but for now, we are almost caught up with our orders (caught up being a relative term) and are forging ahead!