Vote for Ally!

Rachel just called and asked me to add this to my blog - it is a contest for Ally - please vote for the cutest dog in the universe and maybe Ally's face will be put on a Bissell product - Rachel will be picking a new picture each week. She loves her Baby Girl!

What's Happening?

Well, I can hardly believe how cool I am! (Of course you know I'm kidding.) I have started a page on Facebook.com. We have been trying to think of ways to promote our Etsy.com store and lots of folks seem to endorse having both a company blog and also getting on Facebook. It's actually been kind of fun to find friends out there from my past and from work, church, etc. My lovely nieces and nephews have even invited their aunt to be a friend, so thanks, kids! Katie Kat, too! (Rachel is considering starting a page, but I don't think she has decided one way or the other just yet. And I think Carol might also be interested?)

So, anyway, what I'm finding is that between Etsy, Facebook, a company blog and our family blog, the big challenge is keeping up with all of them! Truth be told, I still think of our family blogs as the most important, and checking out Brenda's, Jenny's, Carol's and Rachel's blogs is one of the first things I do online (ahhhh, Carol, that would be 4 weeks for you, even worse than me)!

So, we'll see how it goes. As for what's new, Haworth has decided to close down on Fridays for the next 3 weeks, so I'm looking forward to a few 3-day weekends! Having said that, it seems that every day I hear something new, either at work or on TV, about more layoffs, company closings, etc. It's a sad time for folks. Herman Miller started their production worker layoffs, too. The new boss I just started working with a couple of months ago tendered her resignation this week (a surprise) and so now my "new" (new for me anyway), department - Staffing and Diversity - will have ANOTHER new manager - at least temporarily. He's a really nice guy, but it 's like - enough already! I'm too old for all these changes.

In Chicago, Rachel has a bad cold, and David and Katie are both working extremely long hours - partly because of the time of the year, and for Dave - he has accepted a new work assignment within Orbitz, and so is getting up to speed for his new position. Congratulations, David! We are so thankful that the kids have good jobs in this day and age.

I'm thinking it's about time for a family breakfast again! How about NEXT Saturday, Jan. 31? Personally, I'd like to try the DeBoer's bakery that I've been hearing about. I think there are two, right, and we went to the "wrong" one last time. Does 9:00am work for everyone? What do you think?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to loved ones and friends near and far! I have been so far behind on the blog lately that I won't even attempt to catch up with the news, other than to say that we all enjoyed the holidays very much; we celebrated with Dave & Rachel before they left for Colorado and then attended the Hamberg Christmas party, we had a great (and somewhat painful - ha ha) family sledding party, Carol surprised us by coming to town, Rachel and David returned safely back from their fun trip to Colorado, where they enjoyed a relaxing Christmas with Mom and Dad Schwartz (Alec and Joanne), the girls and I had our annual after-Christmas shopping spree in Chicago (see our goofy video below), and we enjoyed seeing some friends and family at Jim and Rachel's last night (New Year's Eve). I've really enjoyed being home for almost two weeks; will return to work next Monday. We send good wishes to Brenda for her surgery tomorrow - all will go well, I'm sure!

(Sorry, these pictures and video are sort of mixed up and backwards from when they happened, but I'm not able to figure out how to move text around after adding pictures, without moving all of the pictures instead. Won't cut and paste my text - anyone know?).....