We’re like, totally famous and stuff

The article was published yesterday and here is a link to it!

I think it turned out alright. Pretty positive for everyone involved and the picture was not hideous. It was above the fold on the front page of the business section. (Of course the business section is the back of the sports section, whatever.) But it was good coverage and I didn’t look horrible. Yay!

Go check it out. And don’t worry mom, I have a copy for you!

Extra! Extra!

******Update: We totally got bumped for the stupid iPhone story! Damn. I will post when it is actually published**********

So… umm. Totally going to be in the newspaper tomorrow someday?

The story got bumped because of the new iPhone coming out. Hopefully it will be in this weeks paper somewhere?

I must admit, I’m a little excited.

They’re doing a story in the business section about the store and they interviewed me, Bridget and several customers. Hopefully I didn’t say anything tremendously stupid and it will be all good. They sent over a photographer on Thursday to get pictures of Bridget and I at the store.

Not sure if I’m more nervous about the article or how my hair looks in the picture.

I’ll post a link tomorrow when the article is actually published.

I can’t believe I freakin own (part of )a store!?

Cable, oh how I miss thee…

Seriously? What in the world made us decide to get rid of cable tv?

I realize it’s ridiculously expensive and that we barely ever watch it. Oh yeah and that whole trying to save money, not spend it frivolously and… oh yeah buying into a business!

BUT

I forgot that Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show are both cable.

More importantly. The Tour de France started Saturday! I love the Tour! I’m not sure I’ll make it without being able to see it.

I may whither away. I do follow several web sites that give me live coverage but it’s just not the same as watching it.

Damn you Time Warner. Why do you have to be so freaking expensive! If I don’t make it, I lay the blame square at your monstrous conglomerate feet.

****Small update: Realized that I can watch Stewart and Colbert online. Woot! And although I love my Tour, most of my websites now have streaming on their sites. I’ll still get the highlights and not pay the way too high prices!

Check out Get Rich Slowly. They posted about this last year. Very interesting read!

The Paper Garden - Part III

It took about a week for Bridget to get back to me.
The following Tuesday she gave me a call and said that she had talked to her family and was interesting in staying in business.  We arranged to have a meeting Wednesday night following a class that we both attend.

After the class, Brian brought us some food, we closed up the store and sat down to look at her numbers as well as ours. Basically the store was doing well but just couldn’t weather the storm of increasing rent at only three years of being in business. *Useless factoid. Most small businesses don’t turn a profit until year five. * Several hours of discussion ensued concerning the risk of investing (whether it was a smart thing for us), the risk of taking on a partner (whether she really wanted to deal with the two of us), as well as whether this should be a loan or an investment? Thankfully Bridget has a business background and had a great deal of insight into what would work best with with a minimum of fuss and legalities.

Realizing that it was now Midnight on a Wednesday, we decided that we should all think things over and meet again at a later time. Much thanks to our neighbor Jill for watching Jeffrey while we were meeting.

Brian and I went home, discussed the amount of money the store needed and decided that we were still interested in following through. While it is a risky move, we both really believe that it’s a solid store and that it will be a good investment for us.

We met again this past Saturday, this time with whole families in tow and discussed the details of a having a partnership. We’re going to try and bring some of Brian and my talents into play with the computers and web based side of the business. Bridget is going to continue to do what she does best, running a great store and continuing all the great ideas she has for it’s future.

We officially signed paperwork on Thursday and Bridget made an announcement to all of her customers that the store is staying open.

So now, I am officially a part business owner. The Paper Garden is staying open! My happy community gets to stay put and I have a place to channel some of the passion that I have for paper crafting.

The Paper Garden - Part II

Friday night. Midnight Moonflowers. Isn’t that a lovely name for a class?
Anyway. I showed up for the crop. It runs from six pm until midnight.  I brought a ton of stuff to work on and basically, I was too nervous to actually work on any of it. The store was really busy since they had announced they were closing so it took until about seven thirty or so for me to corner Bridget.

I wasn’t really sure how to approach her (even though I’d been rehearsing it in my head ALL day!) so I just asked “how much of a lottery win would you need to stay open? and would you still want to consider it, because Brian and I would be interesting in investing to keep your store open.” I pretty much got open mouthed shock from her and she told me to give her a few minutes and then we could sit down and talk.
Oh and we talked. For the next few hours or so. She told me her philosophy for the business. Why they had opened, what her goals were, and that she thought that she had a pretty good thing here and was happy that she had accomplished many of her goals. She also said that she was pretty much in the mode of closing the store and would really need to give it some thought about whether they wanted to stay in business or not. Also, she wanted to look over her numbers and see what it would take to stay open. We continued to chat for awhile. I told her that Brian and I had some ideas concerning web based sales and some computer expertise that Brian could lend. That we would NOT be interested in taking over the store, that we both think that she runs it extremely well, and that we just thought that the community was losing out with her closing.

She told me she would think about it and get back to me.