New business name and focus

FINALLY!! My logo is done for the new business name. Business cards, letterhead and labels will be ordered tomorrow :) What a LONG process to get this logo done, though. It was a lot more work than the logo for Gardener For Hire. Hopefully at least the front page of the website will be up and going in the next few days. A friend is doing it for me and we met the other day for lunch to discuss it. Since I've never done a business website, I had no idea what to do for it. He gave some good suggestions and hopefully I'll be able to do my homework over the next few days to get him the information that's needed for the different pages.

I made my first bid on a interiorscape job today... it's a chain restaurant that has been having the janitor care for all of it's plants since last fall. YIKES!! Needless to say... the plants need some help. I actually made three different quotes... Interior Maintenance, Outside containers (none currently) and Initial Setup (suggested replacing some plants, repotting all the others and adding a couple more in places). Hopefully I'll hear something positive back in the next couple of days.

A bit of bad news last night... My Uncle Jerry died after being hospitalized for the past week. He had failed a stress test twice and after the second test they immediately admitted him. He seemed to be doing ok for a few days, but then took a turn for the worse during the weekend. He deteriorated quickly between Monday and Wednesday. Uncle Jerry had lived in Reno for years, but moved back to Illinois a few years ago after having severe health problems. He was given a second chance at life and made the most of it. Though he was unable to do many things physically because of his health, he was able to spend a significant time with his father and mother. Uncle Jerry was an alcoholic and chain smoker for years, but while living in Reno, to everyone's surprise admitted himself to care for his alcoholism. Though he continued to smoke excessively, after his near-death experience that brought him back to Illinois he quit smoking, too.

The wonderful thing over the past few years since returning to Illinois was seeing how Uncle Jerry became active in a small church in Pekin and for the first time probably in his life had a personal relationship with God. In fact, when my Grandma and Grandpa (his parents) were looking for a church in Pekin, guess who invited them to HIS church? Uncle Jerry. Funny thing is... the young pastor there at the church at the time was someone from my brother's youth group. At the time there was an unknown connection.

More on Uncle Jerry later... Right now I have to get the house a little cleaned up before Laurie gets home. Oops... there she is... TOO LATE AGAIN!!