New year, new city, new life!

I am in the city I love. I feel like I am living my dream! Pinch me so I know it's real. This is so amazing, being here, doing the things I enjoy, seeing friends and family, taking walks around the neighborhood with Bandit, going out for great coffee and food, meeting new people, getting to know myself again! I am extremely happy!

Sunny Sunday

He was NOT too happy!

Look at how skinny he is!

Cool Pup

First trip on a leash.

Good doggie!

Hide and go seek...Bandit won!

Bandit's new bed! Oooooh...cozy!

Bandit and his toys

He looks so awkward here! I think it is because of his haircut!

Bandit's fave toy, porcupine.

Silly puppy!

This is how he sleeps.

This is how he looks at you when you tell him not to bite fingers.

This is Ricky trying to take Bandit's favorite toy from him!

Proud parents

The Tomaszewski's

Just the three of us!

Our baby!

This is our new baby, Bandit! He was born on November 20, 2008. He is Maltese and Shih-tzu mix, he is an angel! Ok, he nibbles on my fingers, but its hard to resist him!

Camera-less

Hi everyone. So I have no new pictures to post. I lost my camera in November and haven't had time to get a new one!

Is everyone excited for our new president and what he has done to inspire the nation? I sure am. Go to your local Starbucks and pledge to volunteer five hours in your community. You'll get a free cup of coffee out of it!! Yum!

Superstars: Howard & Bono

Bono crashed our party to tell us about Product (RED). Yes, I cried-only a little though after I knocked over one of my partners into the isle! Every product you buy that has the (RED) logo donates a portion to the Global Fund which fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. So buy a few Peppermint Mocha Twists or Gingersnap Lattes before the end of the day Friday January 2nd and 5 cents will go to the Global fund! Do something good everyday! I love you Bono!

Lunch in the Superdome

Superdome

10,000 in the Superdome!

Close your eyes kids! Local coffee!

Me, Valerie, Julia, Lenora

Valerie, the woman who hired me 9 years ago! I dropped my application at the counter, turned around to walk to my car and she ran out the door behind me to talk to me! Needless to say...

This is June

This is June, we worked at her home. She wanted some plants planted in front of her house and a tree to be planted in the front yard.

This is me and Dylan. I think he is from Iowa. He and I worked together to dig holes and plant the plants for June. He was very funny. I guess he writes for our company paper The Siren's Tale. He was asking June all sorts of questions!

This is how the little planter turned out! Pretty nice huh? I hope they are still alive! You know how I am with plants!

The Beacon Of Hope Resource Center

These women are volunteers for the Beacon of Hope Resource Center. They organized the volunteers who would be working the Gentilly neighborhood on Wednesday. The woman on the left is expressing her gratitude for our help. She had me in tears.

This is the group I was in on Wednesday. We walked down the street and the organizers would yell out how many volunteers were needed on each site or at each home. The home owners would direct us from there.

The home owners were contacted prior to our arrival in New Orleans. They were asked if they wanted to have help with their homes. Those who accepted received money to purchase plants, trees, paint, tools, whatever was needed to do improvements on their homes. Then we showed up to do the work!

Monday's schedule was packed with activities. I hardly took any pictures at all. Here is one of the convention center where we were waiting to enter the customer gallery. There were so many people!

The customer gallery was amazing. It was at times emotional. Inside there were walls with customer letters - good and bad - for us to read and relate to. There was an enormous wall of cups and 'cup phones' for us to listen in on actual customer calls to the customer care line.

Then of course the video about 'Bob' and 'not-Bob'. The conversations we all have to have about the difference in the way we treat our regular customers and the customers who don't come in everyday. It makes me feel bad to know that I haven't treated everyone with the same level of care and enthusiasm. That's what these conferences are for!

The partner gallery was inspiring. It provided new ideas for engaging and inspiring our partners. There are activities to do when back in our stores to help build a strong team which in turn creates a better experience for our customers. I look forward to meeting with each of my partners individually.

I participated in an executive round table with Troy Alstead, our senior vice president of finance. As a table we talked about the effect on Starbucks of the economy and what is happening on Wall Street these days. We also talked about store budgets, store manager bonuses and how new programs/promotions get thrown at us so frequently making smooth execution challenging.

An awards dinner for the South/Southwest Zone finished off the evening. The store managers of the quarter for 2008, store manager of the year and district manager of the year were announced and recognized for their work.

After dinner it was back out to Bourbon Street! Another late night, but we got to sleep in!

Bourbon Street

When we were done with the stores gallery we ate dinner and went down to Bourbon Street! Dawn, Lenora and I explored the street's various bars and souvenier shops. We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of our team who arrived at 10:30p. Luckily they were as JAZZED as we were to see what was going on, so we all went back to the party, found a cool bar called Bourbon Rocks and stayed out until 3:00a!

BELIEVE in the power of 10,000

On Sunday October 26th I travelled to New Orleans for our Leadership Conference. I have been to other conferences that were on a much smaller scale so I wasn't sure what to expect. Seeing this billboard as we left the New Orleans airport heading into town gave me an idea that this would be a very big deal! This was not the only sign in the city with our name on it. We were on every lampost! One said "BELIEVE in the power of 10,000"- another said "ONWARD". These were the theme of our conference.

Our conference was to include four galleries, coffee, partner, customer and stores, one day was to be spent participating in community support (ours was Tuesday), and one day was the general session where all 10,000 fo us were together in the arena to see Howard speak.

The first gallery I attended was the stores gallery. There were many topics highligted in the gallery, how to 'green' your store, being involved in your community, tea beverages, holiday set-up, and a new store model. I was most excited about how to green your store. I have always set the expectation for all of my partners to use for-here cups for their beverages while they are at work, and we recycle EVERYTHING that is recycleable, even coffee grinds! What I want to work on next is getting the customers to use travel mugs to take their beverages in and to use our for-here cups to enjoy in the store.

MORE TO COME...