Jill's Journal: A big cake, a party and road construction
I haven’t always made the best decisions.
And last week happened to be one of those moments for a less-than-best decision. It centered around a cake, a party and the dreaded rite of summer in these parts of the country: road construction.
Just as we have from the very start of Brandon Valley Media Group, we scheduled our usual party for early August to mark the beginning of the Brandon Valley Journal’s seventh year of publication. And just as we have before, we offered discounts on subscriptions, free gifts, door prizes, treats, and of course, the star of the show: birthday cake!
As the days narrowed down to our party, there’s always a handful of tasks to tackle: Decide on dates for the party, purchase party supplies, write, layout, print and mail out more than 9,500 newspapers to the folks who reside within our coverage area – essentially those who live within the borders of the Brandon Valley School District – gather some door prizes, spruce the place up a bit and of course, order the cake.
As it turned out, organizing the party was a breeze. The celebration typically takes place during the first days of August, and with production days on Monday and Tuesday, that leaves us with Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
I opted for Thursday and Friday, as Wednesday was earmarked for gathering the party props, doing a bit of reporting and simply recovering from two packed-filled days of putting the finishing touches on our print products.
While the hurdles I had to “jump” were quite low in comparison to the one’s our Lynx track and field kids fly over, the first hurdle I had to clear was deciding on how big of a cake to order.
One half-sheet or two? Or perhaps, a full-sheet cake?
I opted for the latter, which turned out not be to my best decision. For clarifications, my bad decision had nothing to do with the design or taste of the cake.
Nope. It was the size of the tasty beast.
After picking up the cake late Wednesday afternoon from our local Sunshine bakery, I brought it back to the office and quickly determined that the size of this cake and the dimensions of our refrigerator was like trying to park a Cadillac in a Volkswagen-sized garage.
But where there’s a will, there is a way, especially when it comes to this stubborn German.
I consider myself somewhat of a good packer, and the proof of that is my closets at home. If you take a peek inside them, you’ll see that I’ve packed a lot into them in a somewhat organized fashion.
Back to my cake conundrum, I deducted that by removing the cake from the box, tilting it just a smudge and using a hint of “brute strength,” I ‘parked this Cadillac of cakes’ in a Volkswagen-sized refrigerator.
With the cake crisis now behind me, the next hurdle to overcome was the construction going on outside of our door. If you’re unaware, Cedar Street is finally getting the overhaul it so badly needs. While I’m ecstatic about the end result, it’s been a bit painful trying to explain to folks not familiar with the area in just how to get to us.
On Thursday, we received several calls, all with the same inquiry, “How do we get to you?” We had similar calls on Friday, and a few yet trickled in on Monday, too.
Thankfully, there’s a handful of parking lots within walking distance that many of our party-goers took advantage of, and I potentially learned that a few of others may have driven across the grass to get from one parking lot to another. Sometimes, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do to achieve success.
As we embark on our seventh year of publication, I offer a sincere thank you to our returning subscribers and to our first-time subscribers. I am – and my waistline, too – is thankful that you found your way to us. Thank you for renewing. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for your support and kind words. And thanks for helping us devour the cake.
