This is going to be my last vent for a while because I want my blog to be more positive after this.  Yesterday, my stress level hit an amazing high level and it’ll continue until after work on Friday (at least).  Why is my stress level so high?

1. Work: I have a project due on Friday that I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.  It was supposed to be done last Friday, but other things came up that I had to work on instead so I got a reprieve for a week.  This project is taking so long to do.  It feels like I’ve been working non-stop, even though I haven’t.  I just can’t seem to focus because I’m so burned out.  At this point, I just want to quit so it’s one less thing to deal with right now.  But, I’m going to stick it out for more reasons than the obvious ones.
2. Car: Our one and only car has been making strange sounds for the past couple of days.  Unfortunately, we haven’t had time to take it into the shop because of work and Froyo.  And, when we do take it in, we don’t have the time to sit around and wait for it to be fixed.  We tried to get a rental car yesterday for a couple of days.  Yeah, that was a no go.  There isn’t a single car within a 60-mile radius of where we live for rent. There’s some stupid conference going on at BYU right now and I guess all three cars at each of the rental places in Utah are being used. Corey’s taking the car in today and we’re hoping it won’t take too long to fix.
3. Froyo: Read the post American Fork Building Inspector = FAIL for details.

I’ve canceled both my personal training sessions this week because I’ve had to stay at work longer than usual and because of everything else going on this week.  I’m really feeling the lack of going.  Even though I feel tired when I’m done, it’s a good tired and I feel so much happier and calm when I go.  I tried to work it out so I could go today, but it just ain’t gonna happen.  I’m going to do three sessions next week to make up for the lack this week.  Maybe, I’ll be super happy and calm next week.  That would be a good thing after this week’s hectic events.

You may not have noticed the update I added to the A New Age of Froyo post.  Anyway, the new location hasn’t opened yet.  We hoped it would open today, but it didn’t.  We hoped it would open tomorrow, but it won’t.  We hoped it would open on Thursday, but that’s a no-can-do either.  At this point, we’re planning on Friday.

You may ask, “Why all the delays?”  It’s been one thing after another.

The movers were supposed to show up on Thursday to move our stuff from the old store to the new store.  They didn’t show up.  They came on Friday instead.

The company that’s doing the stainless steel caps around the area the machines fit into and the stainless steel for the chair rail had a mishap of their own.  Their machine broke last week.  We were supposed to get the stainless steel last Thursday, but they weren’t able to get us anything until today. The caps for the area around the machines are being installed and are almost done.  The rest of the stainless steel will be coming and installed tomorrow.  (The health inspection can’t happen until the caps are installed, even though it’s considered finish work, because the caps are near the machines.)

The word “signs” has become a swear word in our house.  Like I said in the previous post, we aren’t going to have our outside signs until later this month or possibly September.  We can deal with that.  But, what we can’t deal with is having no signs inside.  The sign people didn’t show up to verify the dimensions so we’re in the process of looking for another sign company because we’re fed up with the the current one.  We have a couple of companies in mind; they wanted the job in the first place so they should be able to get us the inside signs in time to open on Friday.

We were about $8000 short on building costs because of all the delays.  Luckily, this one has been resolved and ended up being the least stressful thing to deal with.

Our building inspector has been a pain in the butt from the beginning of the process.  He acts like he’s God’s gift to building inspectors and has all these stupid rules that make no difference to whether the building’s sound.  Our contractor has told us that he’s never had to deal with these “rules,” even when building in American Fork.

Anyway, the inspector did our final inspection yesterday and we failed it! That’s not even the most frustrating part.  We didn’t fail it because we weren’t up to code; we failed it because of stupid reasons that had nothing to do with the inspector’s actual job!

1. He said our tables and chairs needed to be set up before he could pass us.  That’s like telling someone they can’t get the okay on their house because their couches aren’t in the living room yet.
2. He said we needed an American Fork business license, which is true.  However, we can’t get one until our building inspection gives us the go ahead to practice business in our space.
3. He said we needed to have our health inspection before he could pass us.  The health department won’t even come by until our building inspection has passed.
4. And, last but not least, he said our counter is an inch and a half too high for American Fork’s standards.  American Fork requires your counter to be no higher than 34 inches so that people in a wheelchair can write a check with ease.  That seems like a sound reason to not pass the inspection, right?  Here’s the catch.  The building inspector approved the blueprints that had the dimensions on them.  He never told us that the counter was only supposed to be 34 inches high; he only said that we had to meet ADA (American Disability Association) standards.  Guess what the ADA’s standard for the top counter height is?  36 inches.  We assumed, which was presumptuous of us, that if we built our counter 35.5 inches high, the height would be fine.  After all, our blueprints were approved, right?  Yeah, I know our reasoning was flawed.

Needless to say, Corey called the boss today to complain.  Now, the only thing we have to comply with out of the above reasons is the counter height.  We’ll be dealing with that tomorrow.

Yesterday, we closed Froyo in Provo.  It was supposed to close last week, but due to some issues with our sub-contractors, our floor was delayed in the new location.  We didn’t want to close the current location too early so we decided to keep the Provo location open until the 29th.  The 29th? Wait a minute!  Yesterday was the 27th.  Because we don’t have a freezer truck, we can’t take any of our frozen goods to the new location.  It’s against health regulations.  And, we didn’t want to waste anything if possible so we’ve been ordering barely enough to get us by until the next delivery.  We thought we had enough to last until the 29th, but we didn’t.

Anyway, our new location is opening on Saturday. The address is 598 W. Main St. in American Fork.  Because nothing’s moved in and the floor’s still being finished, I don’t have any pictures to post.  But, I’ll post some after the opening.

Our grand opening won’t be until late August/early September.  The signs for the outside of the store are taking a bit longer than we expected.  We’re delaying our grand opening until we get the signs.  I’ll post the date once we know.

Updated: The health inspector can’t come until Monday and we can’t even bring any product in until we’ve been given the okay.  Our store’s not opening until next week on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Sorry about all the plan changes.

Happy birthday, Christian!

I thought I’d throw in another Froyo update. Froyo’s going really well.  Business has picked up thanks to Corey’s marketing genius and efforts.

At the moment, we’re still in the same location.  However, as of last Thursday, construction started on our new location! Woo hoo! We’re a couple of weeks behind due to some mixups with the city, but we should move by the second week of July.  We’ll have a Grand Opening party and I’ll post details when we know more.

Corey and I are both excited to move to the new location.  We wish we would’ve been in by the 4th of July, but it’s okay.  We’ll be in for Pioneer Day.  We’re excited to get in all our new menu options when we move, especially our sorbet so we can offer our services to more people.

Even though we’re still in the old location, we’re slowly updating the look of Froyo.  Some things, like the sign on the old location, are still using the old brand because we don’t want to go through the effort or cost to change things just for a few weeks.  However, our new rugs and other promotional items have arrived.  We’re getting word out that Froyo’s better and more exciting than it used to be.

So far, most people that try our frozen yogurt love it, crave it, and want more. Most of our friends, family, and customers say it’s the best frozen yogurt they’ve had.  We’re always glad to hear such compliments because it helps make everything we’re doing worth it!

PS–When I say “we,” I really mean Corey since he’s doing most, if not all, the work right now.  I help a little, but since I still work at my current job, I have little time to do anything.

Happy belated birthday, Carlee!

Yesterday, I was going to go to another signing for Shannon Hale, but I was so worn out that I didn’t end up going.  I was a little disappointed, but I know I’ll have another opportunity.

Missing the signing turned out to be a good thing.  My sister Becky and her family wanted to come down to try our frozen yogurt.  And, since it was my niece Carlee’s birthday, they decided to go to Olive Garden and invited Corey and me to come along.  Unfortunately, Corey had to work at Froyo yesterday so only I could go.  The dinner was really good and I enjoyed spending some time with everyone.

After dinner, we went to Froyo.  Everyone really enjoyed the frozen yogurt, especially my great-niece Aubree.  My niece Kelsey was trying to get Aubree’s attention, but she was too engrossed in her frozen yogurt.  After a minute, she exclaimed, “This is so good.” And, when we had our picture taken, Aubree was really upset because we took her away from her “ice cream.”

While I was taking pictures, I was able to get my great-niece Sophie to smile.  She’s so cute!

Happy birthday, Aubree!

We had our first major emergency with Froyo yesterday.  After Corey picked me up from work, we dropped by the store to make sure everything was okay and to sample a little of our product.  (We just got new flavors and I hadn’t tasted them yet.)  Everything was great; no hiccups or anything.  We decided to go home and get some dinner before we were going to head over to our friends the Vigues’s to babysit the kids.

About 40 minutes before we were supposed to be at the Vigues’s, one of our employees called.  She was frantic because there was water spraying everywhere and she wasn’t sure what was going on. We tried to talk her through turning the water off, but she was getting sprayed by water and couldn’t get the machines to move out of the way, especially while she was on the phone.  We called the Vigues and told them we had to bail on babysitting, which we were pretty sad about since we love their kids and we hated leaving them in the lurch like that.  Then, we headed over to Froyo.

By the time we got to Froyo, she had figured out how to turn the water off and was completely drenched.  (We offered to let her go home, but she told us she was fine.)  There was a small lake in the store. Our other employee came in just before us because she was going to help give out samples to a car show in the parking lot last night.  All four of us proceeded to mop/wipe up the gallons of water all over the place–floor, counters, machines, cabinets.  About two hours of clean up and five gallons of water later, we were back to normal.

Luckily, the only thing damaged was the reason for the flood in the first place.  One of the tubes to the ice cream scoop cleaner tub had split.  Even though it was lots of fun ( ) to deal with, it could’ve been a lot worse.  We’re grateful for our awesome employees and no damage done!

Our new location is looking sweeter and sweeter all the time.

Happy birthday, Brett!

I wasn’t going to post anything else about Froyo until we move it to the new location.  But, I’ve had a lot of people ask me how it’s going and how Corey and I like owning it.  I thought I should post a small update.

First, the biggest change for us is that Cassie’s being a lot more affectionate than he normally is.  If you know Cassie, this is kind of hard to imagine since he’s already such an affectionate cat.  He’s been used to having Corey at home with him during the day for so long that he’s been feeling a bit lonely and neglected.  Every time we’re home, he wants our undivided attention or to be in the middle of anything we’re doing.  While I was reading on Saturday, he decided it was time to be loved and jumped up on me so I could give him affection.  Obviously, you can’t tell from the picture, but he was purring very loudly and was very happy.

Anyway, Corey and I really like Froyo.  Both of our employees are college students so during finals last week, Corey picked up a lot of the hours to cover for the hours our employees needed to study for and take their exams.  It was a pretty busy week for him.  Not only was he working in the store, but he also did (and is still doing) a lot of other things to help rebrand Froyo, grow business, and get ready for the move.

Right now, business is growing more and more each week as summer looms closer.  In the current location, it’s slower than it could be.  I guess that’s why the number one rule of business is, “Location, Location, Location.” But, business is still good, which is great!

We’ve implemented a couple of specials to get more people in while we’re in the current location.  One special is to help compensate for the rainy weather.  If you come in while it’s raining, you can buy one frozen yogurt (or any product for that matter) and get another one, of equal or lesser value, for free.

The other special is just to help get the word out about Froyo.  There’s already a small following, but of course, we want to help it grow even bigger. This special involves joining our * I Love Froyo * group on Facebook.  If you join this group, you can print your invite and bring it into Froyo to get a free frozen yogurt during the month of May. Spread the word to all your Facebook friends!

We still haven’t added sorbet to our menu, unfortunately.  We’re waiting until we move to the new location because the current location can’t accommodate the sorbet.  (Sorry to my lactose-intolerant friends.  Hang in just a little longer! )

Right now, we’re slated to move to the new location near the end of June.  However, we may be able to move sooner!  Once we do move, we’ll have a grand opening to introduce the new, improved Froyo!

Anyway, if you still haven’t come in to see us, please do.  Corey’s usually there everyday and I’m there on Saturdays.  We’d love to see you and serve you some yummy frozen yogurt!