Our Angel Ange

Way back (eight months ago) when we first opened our doors a young, beautiful, red headed woman wandered into our store. It was love at first sight for all of us. Ange is an actress, but she has a love for home design. We actually soon discovered that she is interested in just about everything. One gets the feeling that Ange lives life like a kid in a candy store eager to taste every new flavor. She asked us to come to her home and help pick colors of paint for her walls. It turned out that Ange was pregnant, and she had already started nesting. Throughout her pregnancy Ange came to visit us, and she also invited us, three old people, to her parties and special events. She had several yards of fabric that had belonged to her grandmother, and we turned it into pillows for her bed. Then, came the big request. Ange found an old wing chair that she wanted covered in teddy bear fur. The purpose of the chair was to cradle mom and baby in softness while they were nursing and bonding. Now, Michael and I have been around the block more than once but this was a brand new request. However, we had come to believe that Ange and her baby were our special angels, and how can one refuse the request of an angel. It took awhile to find just the right fur, but we are proud to say that we accomplished it. You will notice an old dilapidated teddy bear sitting in the chair. It belonged to Michael when he was a toddler. See how close we came to reproducing Michael's old teddy bear in the form of a chair. Ange had her baby, and he is an absolutely gorgeous little boy named Logan. It gives us great pleasure to think about the two of them curled up in the arms of a big teddy bear.

Oscar and Pippy

On the 22nd of July we had our special event - John Robshaw linen sale and quasi official opening of our store (after seven months of operation.)
We had a rather nice attendance, a lot of people came and had questions and wanted to buy.  Fortunately it was not overwhelming and with the help of Mike Polka (Robshow's rep) we were able to talk to everyone.

Mike Polka

In the middle of all this excitement plus wine and cheese offerings a beautiful young lady came in.  Later on we learned that her name is Amy.  She was going around the store admiring everything in it but (as she was sipping a wonderful Sauvignon Blanc) she was coming all the time back to one of the John Robshaw's dog beds.  The dog beds are beautiful but they are not inexpensive; they are a real investment of dollars and love. After about thirty minutes Amy made a decision.  She bought the medium size dog bed and left with a big gentle smile on her beautiful face.
Yesterday we got an e-mail from Amy.  Her two dogs, Oscar and Pippy enjoying their new bed:

Oscar and Pippy
John Robshaw - Dog Bed

Amy, thank you for sharing!

Special Event on Thursday, July 22, 2010

Also a very nice article on the internet at mydailyfind.com

New Bed - New Look

Michael and Beth changed the bedding from John Robshaw to Traditions by Pamela Kline.

I would say that they did a pretty good job!

Slowly, but we shall get there...

Our web site is born! Filigree website
We worked closely with Black Dog Creative Group and Laurie Paquette is terrific.  She had all the patience of a saint - especially with Michael our genius designer who pays attention to every detail.

Alone

This morning Beth and Mikey left for Las Vegas. There is some trade show there, and they'll be walking tens of miles and hundreds of floors looking at mostly "crapola". Sasha and I stayed behind tending our store, which is somehow dead for the last two days. Sashie opened the store at 10 and I came to join her just a little bit after 12. We had only one customer who didn't buy anything but she can be back - she loved John Robshaw "stuff". Sashie's gone now and I'm hoping for some kind of an action.


An older man just walked in. Medium high, relatively slim, silver hair, permanent suntan complexion and intelligent blue eyes. All "dressed up" in an ocean blue workout "suit" with a white roll-up sweater under the jacket. He was very complimentary about the store. After a little chat (he was interested in some slip covers) he revealed that he used to be a designer for 38 years. Good man.

Now back to almost boring waiting for Godot. In meantime I played with Pirsc's porcelain skull and John Robshaw's bedding.

What do you thing? Do they match together? :-)

Retirement Plan

The statistics on retirement are not good. Basically, they predict that you will drop dead within the first two years that you retire. That did actually happen to two wonderful men I knew that retired from teaching, and I believe that is one of life's great injustices that you could rail against God all day about. There must be some mind-body link to the idea that your purpose for living is over once you retire. I do think that it is unhealthy for me to think that my work is done, so a new career feels just right to me. And it needed to be a career that I enjoyed. You must be thinking that running a store is a radical departure from being a teacher, and you would be right. Most of the day, I feel like an infant because I don't know what people are talking about. However, I am doing this project with my brother, and he knows how to run a store.