Funnily enough I was out with some friends the other night (Liverpool House… yummy) and I was rambling (as usual) about the new store/blog… and mentioned something about how Amanda is really the one who keeps the blog going and that all I do is throw in my Tuesdays with Marnie (heretofore sometimes, but not always to be known as TWM) column.  All of a sudden my friend Chris was making reference to some other “Tuesdays with Marnie” thing that I started like 5 years ago… I think in June.  Basically I would pick a bar or an activity on a Tuesday, send an email, and hope that some people showed up.  And you know what?  It worked for a while… I think from June through October.  Not sure what happened after that…. or why I brought that up.  I guess it was possibly as a bit of a warning… like, don’t be surprised if in 4 months, you sit down on a Tuesday evening after a long days work, pour yourself a giant glass of wine (If you’re me… if you’re normal, maybe you just pour a regular-sized glass of wine), throw on some soothing music and go to your favourite blog (ummm…. obviously this one), to read your favourite column (again, obviously this one)…. only to find no entry and feel completely gypped.  Because apparently, that’s how Chris felt 5 years ago when I stopped sending out an email on one random Tuesday, and never spoke of it again.  Also, apparently, Chris holds onto things a little longer than he should, because really, he could have just called me on it 5 years ago, you know what I’m saying?

Anyhow, until such time as I put an unannounced stop to the second incarnation of Tuesdays with Marnie… let’s talk about the new store!!!

Here’s the latest progression…

Oh. My. God.  If I told you that I just spent like almost an hour trying to insert these photos, with borders and captions and centered and making sense, and in the end I had to make the executive decision to accept that at least as they appear above they are the same size and some are beside each other… would you think I was pathetic?  Wow.  Seriously, I don’t know what happened there, but it simply was not coming together.  I’m almost so frustrated that I want to just not bother with this anymore, because, let’s face it… at this exact moment, writing this exact TWM, I am unashamedly avoiding doing my month-end accounting, because this seemed funner.  Until the whole picture insertion went horribly wrong, and now accounting is seeming like it would have been a better call.

But no.  You want to hear about the store… and I’ll be damned if I wasted an hour for nothing!  So, basically we had the display units delivered on Friday… the pictures don’t even really do justice to how huge they seemed and how afraid I was that Amanda was going to just look at me and go… “12 feet high, eh, Marn?  You know the ceilings are only 11 feet high, right?  Just like it says here on the floorplan that we got from the landlord…”  Ok, I may be exaggerating… but I was worried.  And they are unassembled (and unpainted) so you don’t really get a good sense of how they are going to look in the end.  God willing, they will come together as I envisaged them… ok, as I saw them in a photo of a cool store in New York City, whatever.

Friday they also finished the painting, which includes a couple of Grey accents- wall behind where the cash will be, and changing room walls.  I really like it.  It adds just a little something.  Also, all the flooring was delivered, and as of today it is 95% done!  I’m not sure if you even notice it in the photos- perhaps because it is so dirty.  You can imagine how funny the contractor thought I was when I walked in and told him that I really liked the floors, but found them a bit dirty… Ahahaha…..ha.  He was basically like… “Yeah, where’s my cheque, jackass?”

Anyhow, when we left the space today they were actually placing the units and starting to assemble them, which is good.  Because for better or for worse, we need to make sure that they are not gigantic looking in the space.  I think that we will be ok, having seen just the beginning of one going together… so I was feeling a little bit of relief this afternoon!  I suppose we’ll get a better sense of it all tomorrow. 

In the meantime, other things are coming along… hoping to see some final recolourings for the logo tonight, along with some designs for bag, postcard, business cards, etc…. Dave…. just a gentle nod that you promised me some stuff tonight….   We’re also organizing the really fun stuff, like, alarms, insurance, bell, computers, sign permits, changing rooms, furniture….not to mention figuring out what to put in the store, and doing the buying for Fall 2010 for both stores.   Wow.  I need to stop blabbing to you guys about what we have to do and ACTUALLY start doing something (Amanda’s just sitting there, nodding her head in appreciation of the fact that I have finally caught on… ).

Alright, back to work.  Sigh.  Stay tuned for more store news next week.  I can’t wait to see how much different it looks by then.

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Dave, Mom and other people we love, Tuesdays with Marnie by Marnie