We did it! The office got a face lift. In three insane days, we painted the entire office, replaced many of the light fixtures, covered over the ugly counter tops, re-did the tile floors, updated the curtains, and even re-upholstered the waiting room chairs. The result is a new and updated look for the whole office. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Eastern Body Therapy and Nola SD had our first open house on March 4. About 50 people stopped in to check out the new décor, nibble on home-made goodies, and socialize a bit. Despite our exhaustion from the remodeling effort which concluded five minutes before the open house began, we had a great time and plan to make it an annual event. The gluten-free coconut cookies were such a hit that they are the recipe for this month’s newsletter.

The man you’ve been seeing around the office is Carlos Mayes. He just graduated from Mueller College with his certificate in personal training. You’ll be seeing more of him as he ramps up his training business. If you’re looking for someone to help you get back into shape, check him out!

Over the next few months, Eastern Body Therapy and Nola SD will be rolling out “Wellness Starts on 6th”, a new name for our combined businesses. While we will continue to maintain our separate identities and separate finances, the new name will allow us to more easily showcase all of the services provided in our office. We hope it will also be less confusing for YOU since you will be able to find information about all of us in one place. We’ll be creating a new website which will link to each of our independent sites while providing information about all the businesses working together at 2310 6th Avenue. We’ll also be creating a Facebook page where all of us will be administrators and making posts.

Also in the works is a new community resources/networking notebook. We decided on a notebook rather than a bulletin board because we think it looks neater, and because a notebook is infinitely expandable while a bulletin board is more space limited. This will be a place in our waiting room where people in our wellness community can leave business cards and information about their businesses. Whether you are a physician or photographer, gardener or book keeper, you will be free to leave your stuff. Anyone who comes into the office will be able to look through the book and grab business cards or contact information for anyone they find interesting.

You may have noticed that Lisa has been going to the computer rather than the phone calendar to schedule your next appointments. This is because she is test-driving an on-line booking system which will eventually allow her patients to schedule their own appointments. This scheduler doesn’t play well with Google calendar and the scheduler interface is friendlier on the big screen than on the phone. The best way to make sure there is no double booking is to just schedule through the new system so all appointments are made in the same place. There is already a “schedule now” link on the ebtherapy.com website so it has seen some limited use, and the results seem favorable. If it continues to work smoothly, you can expect an invitation to sign up for the system in the next few months.