An Intriguing Tale Of Being An Owner

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.

Now that we have Gary who is reliable to help us with the store – we can go for a cheap vacation anytime we want – and we’ve found some really great prices on vacation home we can rent for the long weekend if we plan to go somewhere warmer.  I love that we now can look for vacation rentals by owner because they are definitely a great place to stay when you are traveling with kids and older folks like your in-laws.

Sometime soon – we are heading back to Asia for a visit – and guess what we are going to do with our home – we are also going to rent out our home – to vacationers – like ourselves while we are away – for 3 months long.  What better way than to make money with our home – while we travel Asia – that certainly will cut our cost down when we are on vacation – that way we don’t have to worry about extra accommodation cost.  It’s like breaking even – smart eh!

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.

Halloween this year – sees the store decorated with big items only.  We forgo the smaller items – and concentrated on the bigger items.  This year also see the store in a better place and after 12 years in business – I have to say that I’m truly happy for the spouse and myself.  Not only do we have a good volunteer at the store – that we can count on and honest – for the very first time – he is also very reliable and flexible with his time.  He also does not give us any personal grievance and works really hard for absolutely  nothing.  I’m happy for the store and myself – no more stress.

The other day – a customer came in to sell his ipod – at the same time – he also said to the boss – that he was in his last year of his computer course and is going to be just like him.  I’m guessing he means as successful ? and own his own business?  or making lots of money repairing them and selling them?  Every now and then – far to often in my opinion – we have people coming in to say stuff like that.  Little do they know that running a successful business is not as easy as they think.  Many of these people don’t have no clue as to where to begin to do anything – because learning stuff from books – with no practical experience is like a nurse doing her internship.

If only it was so easy – but like everything in the many years in business – we just nod and wish them good luck.  4 years ago – a disgruntled ex-employer – whose boyfriend also went into a computer course – and of course – he said he was going to put us out of business after he finished his course.  But guess what?  we are still in business – muahahhaha!!

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.

These shopping bags were sent by the supplier for Magic the Gathering – I loved it – because it would give those who are fans of Magic the Gathering something to carry their Magic cards in.  I don’t think the supplier sends it to all stores – only for those who are on core level – so there are some good to being a Core level store for Magic The Gathering.  For those who wants one of these bags – don’t forget to come buy some Magic cards.

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.

Yes! we are gonna be opened for Thanksgiving Day – at least a few hours – from 12 – 6pm – bummer that the chinese restaurant is not opened and neither is good old timmie’s.  Oh well, we will survived – it’s just one day.  But yes!  we worked really hard and is opened on all holidays – but now that we have Gary – that’s not that bad  and if we really wanted to take time off – we can.

We hope that we will continue to do well – for the rest of the year – this year – the time had really flew – I don’t know where all those days went – but we are very blessed – business had been good and the spouse had been making some good choices and not buying anything that we need to keep for a long time.  I hope that next year we will be able to take some proper time off – i fully trust Gary – I know there is nothing to be worried about when he is at the store.  In fact, he always goes beyond his call of duty to help us.

Guess it’s job hunting season around this town again – we’ve been receiving numerous application for a job in the store.  I can’t really blame them – since the boat isn’t coming next year – and one of the hotels in town had announced this week that they needed to close its door permanently due to molding problems, so the jobs there are redundant.  Food Service Jobs are available but most people in the food industry or the hotel industry are probably in the same job for years and to open a few more positions for those who’ve lost their jobs recently is probably not feasible.  So in the next few months – you will see a lot of young people leaving town to seek for food service jobs in restaurants, hotels and cafes out of town.  Luckily, in the city – there are lots of eateries and the hospitality industry continues to do well – but not in this town.  I wish those going out of town good luck and fully understand why you would take this step.

Today I received a phone call from a local but reputable funeral home – asking me if we had any laptop come in on Sunday.  I replied that “i didn’t think so” since I was not in on Sunday but knowing that no one can buy the laptop when we are not around – I was pretty sure.  But the caller insist that I become sure – and asked again – if I didn’t think so or I didn’t.   For one, he was asking for help – and information – he had no right to question my answers – I was quite pissed – because I didn’t need to answer him at all.  But I let it go – since the funeral man must think he is upper class than me?  yes ignorant.   And with ppl like that – let me tell you even if I do come across the laptop in the near future I won’t be helping you.  Forget it!  if you want something from someone/business – be nice – else you might find yourself without any help and someone who is going to shun you and talk bad about your business.  Shocking how a funeral home guy can be so rude and ignorant – what rights do you have to question me?

Movie rentals has finally picked up this week – and even though it’s not like when we started 12 years ago – it’s a good sign for us – just as long – no one decides that we are making so much money and wants a piece of the pie.  For in this area – you cannot support more than 1 movie rental place.   I hope the rental continues to be good – but I think we are doing better with games.

A few months ago – we had an opportunity to move to Starrs Road and this week we have an opportunity to move to a bigger store but right on Main.  Of course, rent is going to be more – about 50% more and to me – there are the pros and cons but with this economy and the landlord that we are going to stay with – may not be the best idea to move.   But the spouse is thinking about it seriously and wants to see what the landlord is going to do about the renovation first before he decides.  I’m still adamant that if we do move – it has to be Starrs road or not but this is not my store – so I cannot make the final decision.

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.

So we have a Pet Valu in town, we just drove by the store and saw their sign up – so can this town support a franchise as huge as Pet valu?  and the rent they need to pay at Starrs Road.   We won’t know how they would do – since we don’t own our own pet – but like all franchise here – I can’t see it doing “that” well – but one can be hopeful eh.

Nope ! not at all and I learned my lesson well – even though I’m just the owner by association – I found out that I need to know what is going on – else you will be in a shocked at your financial situation. That’s not fun at all!  so make sure you know what the boss is doing. We are darn lucky – we are able to turn things around – if not – we would be in deep trouble.

The local Y was renovated and it had a re- grand opening last week – on the weekend, unfortunately, we were not in town but it doesn’t mean that we would have gone either.  Usually events like this are for the town councilors and MPs  – so the boss and I rarely attend these things as he is not always into small chats.  He cannot be bothered usually and just wants to go back to the store to make money and work hard.  Lucky for me – he is not a man of many words but a man who does work – muahahah!!

So around our building we try to plant flowers and plants to beautify the store – but we don’t seems to be getting the right fertilizer because the flowers just don’t grow the way we want them to.  A customer told us about a composter that she used to grow her vegetables as well as her garlic and stuff – one day she even brought me some.   I don’t know if I would be successful growing my own flower plot and garden at the back of the store or not – but I could definitely use a composter at home for the spouse’s father had always wanted me to grow raspberries and other things and I loved growing my own herbs and cucumbers and peas.  So this compost bins are pretty easy to use I heard – and we are definitely checking it out.  If we can make the earth a better place to live in and eat healthy – why not right?

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