Hello

Don't have much to say. I at least wanted to say hello. Hello! It seems like forever since I posted. It was two days ago! Things have been busy. Just the same old thing.

All the service unit managers for girl scout nuts got an email yesterday afternoon, asking for help. Apparently sales of magazines is down fifteen percent in OC and nuts are down as well. We were asked to query our troop managers for their opinions as to why sales were down. I got some feedback and of course, I have my own ideas as well.

My opinion is that they mixed it up a bit too much this year with new flavors. They took away some favorites. Like deluxe mixed nuts are gone and replaced by cinnamon mixed nuts. Chocolate covered peanuts have been replace with chocolate covered almonds. Chocolate covered trefoils have been replaced with peanut butter cups. Also added were chili con limon nuts. Ten products in all. We were asked if they ordered mixed nuts without cinnamon, would we order additonal nuts. The answer is, that most have already spent all they want to spend. But, mixed nuts would have sold better, absolutely. In addition to the odd flavors this year, they start the sale right as school begins and we are already bombarded with writing little checks for various school items, not to mention the amount spent on school clothes, leaves everybody with less money in September. And trying to get into a routine for the new year is crazy enough without having to go out selling nuts door to door. At least those are my reasons.

Others suggested we do training earlier, sell in October. Some have girls who don't want to sell nuts because they don't sell themselves like the cookies do. Others are burned out and don't want to sell. And the natural disasters have many of us sending money to additonal charities or the red cross.

After I sent out the email, I decided to crunch the numbers and found out we sold 89% over last year. We nearly doubled the amount of girls selling. And troops were up by half as many as last year...Our town did very well. But, I will still send our opinions to the council, it is important feedback for them. Still, we could have sold more with a better selection!

David is on the mend. He is back to work and working very hard. He was off longer than he imagined, after the set back last week. Now the bills come rolling if for the hospital and the ER we have both visited in the past month. Always interesting to see what the Insurance company will pay for or not. And how they disallow over charging by the doctors, hospitals and labs, they are contracted with. One bill for the Doctor who reviewed an xray and sent David home after a minor car accident, got a whopping $13.89! That amazes me. It seems that all the paperwork is more costly than that miniscule amount.

I have done well to keep the Halloween candy out of the house thus far. I always get too much, then we have two kids come to the door. Our area is dark, no street lamps and is known as the scary area to kids. Although, in the past year, we have had a few families move in with little ones. I suspect we will have more kiddies this year. We usually go down a couple of streets to a long flat street. It is full of kids and most of the homes are decorated for Halloween. It is fun. There is a famous street, to locals, where many kids end up going. We still have not done that street, and probably won't. Halloween is different than when I was a kid. We went without our parents, with a pillow case and we would fill it up. I am glad the girls don't get that quantity of candy though. They eat some and the rest stays until it gets tossed around Easter. I was talking to the girls about Halloween on the way to school this morning and was reminded that last year they went out in a group of four, as the mothers hung out here drinking wine...That sounds like fun, we should do that again.