January 17. Tuesday Night.

Hi Journey.

Joni protests too much, but she is the one I am going to first from now on when I need a fresh idea for marketing anything at the store--at least for the rest of this month.

Just two more weeks until I visit Mattie.

Joni had her second breakout marketing idea today. At least she shared it during today's Bloom Team session. I could tell for the last couple of months she's been holding back during the Bloom Team meetings. For once, my just waiting and not ‘nudging her on' was good. I did send her a couple “thanks for the newsletter idea” notes back in late November, so I guess maybe I nudged a little.

But I did not prod.

Joni has an idea modeled after my Clipping System.

I've always clipped. I remember when I was little clipping from Teen and Country Living and GQ . I loved to clip and collage all types of images and then gluestick them to poster board. I resented Mom for threatening to throw out some of the collages I had tacked up to the walls in my room during one of our weekly knock-down drag-out fights when I was 13. She never did actually toss any of them. Even now Mom's much more smoke than fire when it comes to threats. But just the thought of losing my collection drove me crazy.

It must have been around 7 th grade when I started to Clip and Classify. Puberty supplies one insight as well as hopscotch emotions.

It just made sense of a sudden to hook up certain images with specific moods. Those collages plastered onto every wall in my room soon gave way to shoeboxes full of clippings. Whimsical. Moody. I think when I was through with high school I ended up with over 40 different categories. (OK, Journey—about a dozen related to guys: Celebs, Hunks, Cute-but-Geeky, etc. But that was strictly Jr. High.)

Luckily neither Joni nor any of the rest of my staff saw those earliest shoeboxes. I suppose Dad has them archived somewhere in one of the storage bins in the family archives; I still haven't gone through them all, even after I lugged them about last month as we cleaned up after the fire. I never did quit clipping, even at Smith. But I certainly did cut back.

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