Sunday, February 10, 2013

Altadena Valentine

Scott and I are lucky in that we hardly ever get sick.  We do try to eat good, healthy food and get enough sleep, but owning your own retail store isn't exactly a relaxing experience.  After five and a half years of working just about every day except for national holidays, it's a wonder that we haven't had to take sick time off.

As I sit here writing this, I'm also blowing my nose into a tissue, my eyes are watering and I'm dead tired.  Yes, I got the crud that's going around, but Scott and I are lucky in another respect, as well.  We know Marcia Copess of HomeBody Botanicals, and sell her botanical remedies and body care products at WFS.  How wonderful to know that when you wake to that dreaded tickle in the back of your throat, a natural remedy is right within reach!  HomeBody's Elderberry Elixir, Fire Cider, and Winter Chills Tea are seeing me through, enabling me to remain vertical and pretty much coherent.  I've talked to many people who are suffering with whatever is going around, be it a cold virus or the flu.  So many don't want to take a flu shot, and the flu shot doesn't guarantee that you'll escape, nor does it protect you from the common (or uncommon) cold.  Upper respiratory congestion leading into bronchitis seems to be the prevailing complaint from this particular virus making its way through Altadena.  Luckily, I seem to have been able to contain this cold to just my nose and eyes with the use of Marcia's products.

I love our creative Altadena artists, and that includes those who formulate organic and wildcrafted botanical remedies and body products!  Thanks, Marcia!

In other news, be sure to look for our email and Facebook page for information on next Saturday's book signing with the authors and illustrator of The Chocolate Princess In The Land Of Plenty.

We had a lovely Valentine-themed poetry event last night, with jazz by local musician (and poet) Amin El, who plays a mean standing bass, and his friend, Taka, who accompanied him on guitar. The poetry recited by Aldonia Bailey, Brian Miles, Debra Johnson aka The Smile Lady, Amin El, among others, was touching, sweet, sometimes bawdy, and as always, relevant to life today.  Here's a couple pictures of the festivities - if you're in the area, come on by, we hold these poetry events just about every month.

Poet And Muscian Amin El Enthralls The Audience

Amin El and Taka playing smooth jazz


The Lovely Aldonia Bailey Recites Love Poetry


Today we held a fundraiser for Altadena Community Church's bad-weather shelter for the homeless.  I'm proud to say that we're going to give them $150.00 - here's a big thank you to our community for helping out!

Have a great week, friends, we'll talk again next week!

4 comments:

Rose - Watching Waves said...

I just love all these community events are WFS! I also love that you so carefully select the products you carry. Quality in every aspect of your business is always evident and demonstrates how much you care about your business, your customers and your community.

Unknown said...

Thank you very much, Rose, for your encouraging words! We believe that there's too much emphasis on making sales, discount tricks and crazy gimmicks to get people into stores by merchants these days. Why not do some good while we're here and make some money for our local non-profits who are also struggling in this economy?

Coyote said...

Reading your Altadena Valentine post I couldn't help but think back to my early introduction to retailing in Long Beach, as a partner with my mother and sister in Party Pleasures, a gift and card shop.

I was just out of the Army, married, and back in college, knowing just enough from accounting 101 for my mom and sister to incorrectly think I should do the store's books.

That wasn't the only mistake they made, nor me assuming that balancing debits and credits couldn't be all that difficult. We closed PP down, managing to get out after a year or so in business with some dignity if not our investment.

Looking back I see we missed many things not the least of which was creative promotion; something I see you have with Webster's. I wish you many more successful years Lori (if not days off) as well as the ability to keep those pesky debits and credits in balance.

Unknown said...

Thank you so much, Bill, I'm so glad you stopped by and left a comment!

Your wishes are gratefully accepted and yes, those accounting tasks vex me to no end.