Friday, June 16, 2017

New arrivals every day

 Items have been coming in daily at the shop. Its like Christmas around there, opening packages and finding things I forgot I ordered. Why did I wait so long to open this place?!
This weeks arrivals include cheese and yogurt making kits, sourdough starter, kombucha kits, bottles for beverages and herbal tinctures, hydroponic seed kits and wonderful wildcrafted skin care products. 

 Forage is the skin care line. The herbal ingredients are picked in the mountains of Appalachia, using time honored traditions of making soaps and using only the finest ingredients for skin care. The shop smells amazing, with aromas of huckleberry, elderberry, sassafras, fir and lemon balm.  I spray a little of the Elderberry body mist on and my mood lifts instantly. The magic of aromatherapy!



 I'm looking forward to trying out the goat cheese kit and the sourdough starter. The kits are complete with everything you need. What could be more satisfying than making it yourself and having a great appetizer before dinner? Plus it all looks so cool on the shelves.

I also love the look of the amber bottles I ordered. They can be used for bottling beer or kombucha or your favorite ciders. Or just decorating the kitchen, ha!

We have a local beer store across the street that sells great beers and we have been wandering over there on weekends after a long day in the shop to have a cold brew. My new favorite is Wicked Weeds Lunatic, because, well the name fits me most days right now! Cheers xo


Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Being a shop owner


Owning a shop has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. I probably wanted a shop when I was born, but don't remember! I spent the entire day in my new space setting things up and waiting on a freight delivery and it was like floating on a cloud. I got all of the herb jars filled and the shop smelled of lavender, lemongrass, chamomile, burdock, and all sorts of other wonderful woody spicy scents. I have forty different herbs for making teas and tinctures or adding to body products. I hope people will get this and want to buy them from me. Its so much better to smell them and touch them than trying to figure it out on the internet. 


 While waiting on the very late truck to show up, I filled little muslin bags with lavender, just because I could. No checking emails, cringing at the ringing phone, having to drive to another store somewhere, packing luggage, sleeping in a hotel and waking up not knowing where I was.
Just breathing in the calm essence of a beautiful herb. Life can be so sweet some days


 I found this really great card holder at a local antique shop for $20. It was a little tattered, but I added some turquoise burlap ribbon to the worst of the boards, and it looks so pretty with my friend Shannon's cards. As I have mentioned many times, I am a fan of her work and she is going to be one of the artists featured in our shop. I can't wait for people in Mebane to get to know her work. It's so wonderful! We are hoping to open the first week in August, time is all of a sudden catching up to me and I wonder if I will have everything done. I ordered a Square P.O.S. system yesterday, went all out and got the bar code scanner, label printer, and cash drawer, even bought a new iPad. I am spending money like I have it, whew..... this better work out!


It was so fun to see a big 18 wheeler pull up in front of my store with boxes... for me!  This is going to be a daily occurrence soon, I have so many orders to write. Oddly enough, this past year and the suck ass job I had taught me a lot and prepared me well for this. Funny how things work out....

Gerry has started an instagram for the store. You can find it on my instagram. He is definitely the better photographer in the family :)
We have decided to forgo FB and stick with the website/blog and instagram. Wesley was cheering us on at the mention of not doing FB, she is so not a fan. I think most folks her age are going more the route of IG and kinda over FB and I am after that demographic so I'm going with her advise, she never fails me.  Has it really only been two weeks since I got dumped by stupid company?! Seems like a year has already passed. This is going to be so much fun!!!!!

Monday, June 5, 2017

Out with the old


Thank you guys so much for your Facebook comments. All I have heard is how I have to do Facebook if I am going to have a store. My last employer/boss was obsessed with Facebook, we hired a cute social media girl, blah blah. I looked back at their pages and they had maybe one or two likes per post. And lots of bad reviews and nasty comments. And they spent a lot of money on FB.
I really don't see the point. I tried, I gave it an effort, but every time I have any sort of encounter with FB I get pissed off. Its not worth it to me. I will take out a dang ad in the newspaper to keep from having to post on FB!! So I am deactivating the account. I will continue to post news on the website/blog I created, which I like doing, and Gerry will at some point, help contribute to an instagram, but he has a day job, so that will be a part time days off thing for him.

The photo above is of things I left behind when I got laid off (except my tools, which I love). It feels so good not to carry that beast of burden around anymore. Today I woke up for our weekly conference call and realized I didn't have to do that. I feel amazing relief and joy for life, what a favor those stupid people did me! New store, new journey, life is so great!!!!


Life is also great for Wesley these days. She so deserves it, she had a rough course for a while there. So news of my girl, which I have written about since she was in 8th grade (I cannot believe that!)
Wes is working in Wilmington NC for Screen Gems Studios, with two other UNCSA graduates that she hung out with while in school there. The show she is a part of is called Good Behavior, it is a TNT show. If you are a Downton Abbey fan, Lady Mary is the lead actor and plays a rather bad girl. We love the show and Wesley is making friends with all sorts of interesting people and doing something good for herself almost every day. I am so proud of her I could actually burst and very happy for her as well.


She lives on a little cobblestone street in a shotgun house. Teeny tiny, but adorable and perfect for her. The neighborhood is a little bit of everything, very diverse in culture, and alternative lifestyles. I love the people on her street. It feels very much like New Orleans and she has settled in very nicely.

The store is coming along great, we have almost all the furniture we need now. I was hoping for a little more money from stupid company, but I'm just keeping the faith that whatever has been propelling this venture will work all of that out for me. Doors continue to open and no road blocks as of yet, so I am hopeful for a successful business and a wonderful shop to be proud of. I hope all of you can come visit!! We are targeting an opening around the first of August. Will keep you posted.

Also check out Joshbroomehomestead.com for news. So glad to be able to blog again and have some nice thoughts to share, instead of constant complaining about ignorance and exhaustion!

Sunday, June 4, 2017

32 years

 June 1, Gerry and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. We had a great day, its hard to believe 32 years have passed since the day we were married. Where in the world does time go!?


We are harvesting herbs in the mornings for the store, chamomile, mint, hyssop, lemon balm. Gerry is growing flowers that we will sell in small bouquets and we will probably have enough tomatoes and peppers to share. Its so nice to get up in the morning and walk around in the yard harvesting instead of getting in the truck and driving to a store to set up. There is nothing at all I miss about my former job. The weight of the world is off of my shoulders!



We have also been moving furniture into the store. I got this wonderful turquoise table Saturday, it is so perfect. The store is becoming more and more of a reality. I keep waking up wondering if I am in a dream, it feels so right and everyone is so supportive. I cannot wait to get the doors open!
I'm trying out Facebook for the store, but as you know from past blog posts, I hate it. Its formatting is cumbersome, and I have already screwed it up several times. I find it invasive and thick with rules, and I just can't get into posting on it at all..... I will continue my blog for the store at joshbroomehomestead.com but I'm afraid the Facebook will be minimal at best....