It's official. We have gone garden mad.

Sorry we've been missing in action for a bit!  We've been immersing ourselves in yard work.  In these tough economic times, it's not feasible to pay landscapers any longer, so with lots of muscle, sweat, and "Italian iced tea" breaks, we've finally finished our gardens.  We're somewhat of perfectionists, so it needed to be done right.  I think we've each lost several pounds and perhaps let ourselves get a little too sunburned, but alas, it is done.  (We're not complaining.  We secretly enjoy the sweaty, dirty goodness of it all.)

Our local county government is kind enough to have a site where its citizens can go to get free composted dirt and/or mulch by the truckload, too, and for that we are so thankful!  We should have taken pictures, because you would have giggled at the shots of us with giant pitchforks on ginormous mounds of dirt.  It was kind of ridiculous.  We're also beyond thankful for those Italian iced teas... fresh brewed black tea poured over 2 or 3 scoops of frozen lemon granita... heaven in a glass! We're not sure what life was like before we discovered them at our local Italian dessert shop.

We're finally starting to see the first bits of edibles from everything we've planted.  Here have a look!

We had so much baby lettuce to cut, that we ended up giving bags away to friends, too.  For dinner last night, we made a salad celebrating the fruits of our labor consisting of the lettuce and strawberries, of course, along with some red onion, feta, and some candied nuts.  We finished it off with an easy and tasty balsamic vinaigrette recipe on Pinterest from SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl.  It was so good!  Check out her other recipes, too.  After discovering her blog, we will be working our way through making quite a few of her recipes, because they all sound so delicious!  I think her Bacon and Herbed Baked Eggs is happening this morning.  As soon as I'm done typing here, I'm making a hungry dash to my herb garden.  We get so inspired by other bloggers to stay home and get crafty everywhere including the kitchen.  

On the vintage note, today we will be deciding what events we will be popping up at soon.  With the weather issues at the Patterson Park event, and being caught up in the transition of closing the shop in Chase, we have SO much inventory, that we really need to get out there and let you all have at it.  Check back soon for updates on where you can find our stuff.  Hopefully we'll have our Etsy store back up and running shortly as well.  We'll keep you posted!

Customers are at the heart of your organization.

During a recent catch-up and coffee session at our neighborhood Starbucks with a good friend who is also a local business woman, and too many stories to tell each other of the delusional people we've had to deal with lately, we both have come to the conclusion that the missing link in many businesses today is customer service and customer satisfaction.  We don't necessarily believe that "the customer is always right", but we have undoubtedly seen what seems to be that many businesses have all but abandoned that old-fashioned notion of caring customer service.  

In attempting to grow this business, it has been necessary for me to reach out to other business people for their services for everything from real estate leasing, to business utilities, to graphic design.  The way I look at it, is that I need them, but they also need me.  Far too often it seems that business people seem to forget that they not only need to provide a service, but they need to build a positive relationship so that their customers will continue to call on them and even refer others to them.  It reminds me of a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: 

My point is... you could have the greatest product in the world, and it's worthless to someone if you give them bad service.  They will surely take their business elsewhere, and then every time someone mentions the type of work you do, they will surely recant their bad experience with you. 

I've had several unsavory experiences lately where business owners lost me as a loyal customer on the first encounter before they even gave me the chance to be loyal.  With that being said, I just felt it important to remind myself and anyone reading this to always remember that your customer is your greatest asset, so be responsive, courteous, and flexible to exceed their expectations.  They will thank you with their business as well as the business of others they've referred.

As for my customers, I am thankful for each and every one of you.