Day thirty-one - Workin' the Weekend

One more day of work this week. I thrust it upon myself because I wanted to take Tuesday off and spend some time in Denton at University of North Texas, my alma mater. Actually, in those days it was known as North Texas State University but it doesn’t matter. It’s still known to be one of the finest music schools and maybe the best jazz program around.

In order to be able to spend all day Tuesday in Denton, I needed to schedule some store visits on the weekend. Saturday was spent zigzagging across Dallas from Home Educator’s Resource in Duncanville, to A + Teacher in Irving, and, finally, Teaching Etc. in Richardson. Dallas has grown to be an enormous mega-city. Several cities surround the core to make one big metropolis. Actually, there has been such a boom in development that it seems there is little undeveloped land between Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton.

First stop of the morning was to Home Educator’s Resource in Duncanville, where I had a terrific visit with Hope Evans, the owner and manager. She recounted how their store had first opened in 1998 in a small section of her husband’s ‘vacuum and janitorial’ store. Since then, the store has grown many times over. In March, Hope will be opening a second store in Lewisville. Hope’s store was so jam-packed with neat stuff that I spent $100 on resources for myself!

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Hope Evans, owner of Home Educator's Resource [top left] , inside of Home Educator's Resource [top right] and outside of Home Educator's Resource [bottom].

To reach the second stop of the day I found myself driving across the city again, this time to Irving, Texas and A+ Teach R. Unfortunately, Janis Wingo, the owner wasn’t in but I had a nice visit with Cynthia, the sales clerk. A+ Teach R usually carries our titles so we had a good chat about which ones have been most popular among the customers.

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Cynthia, a sales clerk [left] and inside the store [right].

Last ‘retailer visit’ of the day was to Mary Lou of Teaching Etc. in Richardson. Mary Lou’s experience teaching first grade for seven years, and then owning the store for fifteen, makes her a valuable resource for the many teachers and parents visiting her store. Mary Lou already carries a nice selection of our titles. Check out the special display she made in the photo.

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Mary Lou [left] and outside Teaching Etc. [right].

By this time I was really ready for a weekend rest. I climbed into the van and sped off looking for the closest hotel with high speed Internet access!