Yes! It’s time to get new signage for the store. When we moved to the new location 4 years ago – we didn’t do up a new one – in fact, we had used an old sign and just asked the sign company to paste in our logo onto the old sign. By the way, the old sign wasn’t even ours to begin with. We will keep the logo of course, but instead of waiting for the sign store to design for us – I rather do the design myself – since I do have the Wacom Bamboo Capture right? gotta make use of it sooner or later – so why not now. Stay tuned for a new signage.
PS : For those who are wondering why we didn’t do it earlier – it was because we were so busy with making money – and taking care of the kid – so no extra time to do this.
Everyone must love the boxing day sale – but you would love it more if you could save more with the boxing day sale and if you looked closely at any online store as I’ve found. Nice to buy things online that is already on discount – yet get an extra discount with the likes of flower coupon codes – pretty awesome right? We do have a boxing day sale today – and there were quite a number of customers coming in and I think only the independent store like ours are the ones who are opened for business – because we are the only hardworking ones that depends on every penny that comes in. But that doesn’t meant that we want all the money to ourselves – we just want to make enough money to pay our bills, have money for food and save some for the kid’s college fund. Not too much to ask for if you ask me right? So come on in for a fabulous savings at our store.
We are indeed blessed every year – we always get a lot of fruit baskets and presents from our friends of the store and some from the customers. Chloe is always blessed with a lot of gifts – one for her birthday and one for Christmas. We have already received a few gifts and yesterday a good girlfriend showed up with fruit basket and gifts for Chloe. We are so grateful for their friendship – there was really no need for gifts. Their friendship is already the greatest gift.
I don’t know about other working moms – but I know how hard it is for me to help out at the store – do my own work yet gotta go home and cook and clean the house. Some people I know don’t really care what they feed their kids nor if their home is clean but I on the other hand being brought up different – is quite OCD about cleanliness. When in Asia – it’s easy to hire a maid from Philippines to help you clean and cook while you are out working but in the West – they don’t practice having a maid. I wished we had residential maid service durham nc here – so that I can get some help with cleaning my home – that way I don’t have to do it on the weekends when I actually want to spend time with my kid and spouse. Plus truth be told, I don’t really think I clean so well either – so I do envy those who can get maid service at a reasonable price and who does a great job.
I’ve tried hiring people to clean my house – but they either don’t clean well – or need specific instructions to what I need them to clean. I don’t have good luck with part time cleaners because they are not trained – and they don’t even come with their own cleaning products. Why I won’t hire a non-professional anymore is because the last one I hired used one cloth to clean just about everywhere in the house, from the kitchen to my dining table and the other rooms of the house. And no that cannot be hygienic, so I won’t hire anyone who don’t have a reference have is qualified to clean my home. When you pay someone to clean your home, you want to make sure they really clean it – and not leave halfway.
Yes, we went out to pick up more Christmas decor for the store this week – because they are now all on sale – at about 40% discount at the mall. I can’t wait to get some more Christmas stuff for both the store and home. This year – we’ve spent more on decor than other years, I think it’s because we are debt free – from credit cards and everything else – so I can spend money on things that I like to pretty up the store. I loved Christmas and have always wanted the store to look nice and Christmasy – this year – I have to say we are the happiest – with no employees to worry about – and a great help from Gary – who comes in to relieve us when we need to go home for supper. We really should have done this a long time ago.
While we won’t have the ferry back next year in town – another store has opened in town and their US office had just called today to ask if we would like to do some work for them. Now that’s really good news because we had wanted to do something like that with the other existing company in town – but they had been such slackers and never took our offer.
I’m just glad that we had the foresight to do anything that will make money in this town – had we stuck ourselves to do only one thing – we wouldn’t have survived for 12 years. I’m happy that we are beginning to see a lot of new customers coming in and realizing that we do so many things. But like usual – people still feel that we should be able to match the big chain store and even when we explained to them – they still go to the big chain stores for certain stuff. But I cannot complain much – despite all the things that is happening in this town – we are still holding up pretty well.
We have many talented people in this town – and one of them is Kelly and her daughter – a customer of our store and a very good looking one too. She sings very well and plays several instrument – I loved her voice a lot – so when someone asked if we have any talent in Yarmouth, I think of Kelly all the time. And if I were Kelly, I would put out a CD and get someone to do her cd duplication service and start selling her cds. We’ve been asked many a times if we would do the cd duplication for our local talent here – but we don’t have the time nor the equipment to do it – but with a voice like Kelly’s, it would really be a pity if she didn’t put her voice on a cd and start to get some recognition for them. You check out the music yourself and let me know what you think.
Yes! the xmas parade was this evening and for the first time being in Canada – the weather was great – not too cold nor too warm – just nice for a Christmas parade. The boss came out to watch the parade with us till customers starting going into the store. Unfortunately, the parade is still nothing like the ones we have at home – but at least I get to see them first hand and not on tv eh. So I count my blessings – you can`t have it all.
So Frost Park is lighted up tonight officially. The town has spent quite a huge sum of money on the lights and the work for it – so enjoy it – the tax payer of the town! it looked really nice – I`m glad they did that – and lets hope they continue to do this for Christmas every year.
The store’s Christmas decor is up ! and early too ! thanks to Gary – who did everything – but of course, this year we also have a Christmas tree from our home – and so it’s really a lot easier to decorate that small window. But all in all – it’s a good beginning – because I didn’t have to do it – muahahha!!
I definitely like the candy cane i bought at the craft show – next year I plan to buy a lot more.
So a old restaurant from Tusket moved to town ! yipppeeeE!! more places for us to try out good food! I’ve always like Marco’s and will definitely be visiting them more often than they were in Tusket. They are no right in the middle of town but still close enough to venture there for lunch and dinner.
This was the location that we were eyeing for – for the longest time – but of course – Pet Valu a chain store has it – but that’s ok – one of our regular customer – is the manager here – so I’m happy and so is the boss.
As much as I don’t like chain store – I’ll have to say that Pet Valu does look nice inside – and lots of products to offer pet lovers and owners.
Lets hope that Pet Valu doesn’t affect another customer’s pet store also in Starrs Road too much – since theirs is like ours a local small business owner.
Lots of pet food.
The store as you can see is well renovated too! we can afford the renovation – for this place – but just didn’t wanna fork out $10K for it. We are that el cheapo – when it comes to renting.
Frozen food for pets will be available soon – wished they had fish though – but they do have fish food.
I’m sure Pet Valu will do well – because it is after all a chain store – deep pockets.
A spectacular turnout for the downtown Halloween Parade – a lot more than we had expected and some of the entries were pretty good too. Younger children were mostly the ones in this parade and some adults and not forgetting their dogs. Great to see the event turned out well – and it was not too, too cold that night.
We’ve watched many kids grow up at our store – for the last 12 years being in business and when we first met them – they always tell their parents what a cool store we have. Most of them would say they want to work here at the store when they grow up – they are just so cute. We have lot of little boys come thru’ our store more than girls because we have more toys for boys than girls I guess – and you can imagine how many of them we’ve left an impression on. For when they come home from college and drop in to say hello – they always remind us of how we used to threaten them to be good or else they can’t get any games at our store. This year for Christmas – we are looking at Personal Creations boys gifts for all these little loyal customers of ours – who’ve made our store a success – because without them – we wouldn’t be here. At the moment, we have a few boys who comes into our store on a daily basis – so we want to reward them with something special that they can carry with them everyday to school and show off to their friends that they got this little duffel bag from our store – with their name on it. We have a few choices that we can choose from – from t-shirts to pencil cases – and they are at reasonable prices – plus I can also get some of these personalize gift for my friend’s kids as well – while I am at it. So yes! this year – we have some surprises for our loyal lil’ customers.
The boss decided to buy some guitars from people who came into the store to sell them not too long ago and as you all know – I’m not very keen on getting stuff that we are not familiar with. I don’t know how to tell a good guitar from a broken one – or the make and brand of it. Anyhow after the first one showed up at our store – we are getting more people who wants to bring in their guitar for sale. But of course, since the first one haven’t sold yet – I don’t think he was willing to buy anymore. Someone came in and asked if we were also giving guitar lessons here since we have the guitars at our store now – funny right! now if we had someone who knows how to play the guitar or even tune it – I wouldn’t mind buying more guitars for the store to resell – but as it is – no matter how funky looking any guitar might be – I just wouldn’t know how to price them up.
So I rather – he keeps buying the console guitars for Guitar Heroes and such – and even though we have a lot of those – I know we will sell them eventually. As I am writing this – another customer just walked in and asked if we give guitar lessons – hahhaha!!! I kid you not. So I’m figuring people do want to take lessons but don’t have anywhere to go to in this town.
We started dressing up the store for Halloween – even though we haven’t dressed up the store during Halloween last year. But I guess this year is different – because things at the store and our personal life is just going so well and smooth. So we have taken time to go shop for some Halloween decor for the store. Say hello to my new sitting partner at the store – there he sits quietly as I type away and yak with the customers. I haven’t given it a name yet – you have any ideas?
Winter isn’t here yet – but the weather is getting cold fast – and in preparation for winter in the store – I’ve decided to invest in a little electric mattress pad for my kid when she is at the store – sick. You see when she is sick from school – she comes to work with us – she has a little sofa bed behind the store – right beside my desk – and there she stays to rest and get well. Every winter – she seems to have it harder – she gets a lot of cold and sometimes comes down with a fever. And when she is at the store – she doesn’t seems to be warm enough and it’s hard on her when we have an electric heater blown directly at her. So this year – since we are doing so much better – I’ve decided to splurge on the essentials – to be prepared. We worked so hard to keep our family healthy and safe right? so this is an investment – the spouse and I thinks it’s absolutely necessary. The kid is thrilled because she likes to get comfy on her sofa couch – she said she won’t mind lying down to watch a movie if she had a electric mattress pad to warm her up in the winter.
We keep a pretty low profile around town where our business is concern and many people who don’t know this – would never think that we had thought of closing our store some 5 years ago – when business took a downturn. So what made us stay open and turn the business around and now making money to live comfortably with all our bills paid and no owing any credit cards company. It’s not a mystery to be honest – but we did what most people wouldn’t do but to tighten our belts and cut down on all the not necessities and lived frugally.
While many businesses would opt to close down and declare bankruptcy, I’m pleased to say that we didn’t and we are really glad. In 4 short years – we were able to pay the bank, pay the credit cards and managed to pay the in-laws the first 10% of our mortgage and now we are debt free and have some to do whatever we liked. We didn’t take the easy way out – and I’m proud of it – sure we made some bad decisions in our 12 yrs in business – mostly with employees – but you’ve gotta make mistakes to learn right? so yes – no more employees for us for a long, long time.
