Sending Smiles ~

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote on a subject for this blog. For those that don't know, my husband and I have closed our shop and retired! I'd like to say that I miss running the shop but for almost 8 months now we have been thoroughly enjoying having time to our selves to putter around the house, travel, meet up with friends and just be ourselves.  So what has inspired me to write again? Well, I'm in the process of writing a book!! Yes, it's a book about which I feel highly qualified to write and the topic is "How to Choose a Wedding Florist". After years of helping hundreds if not thousands of couples plan their wedding flowers, I'm putting together an eBook that will help them choose a florist, save time, money and frustration. I'm taking all the things I learned as well as all the things I saw my couples do both wrong and right and sharing them with others.  The book is almost done but I'm currently writing a chapt...

Oh boy, that makes me laugh when I say it but in business it’s so true. A few years back, I was having a talk with a trusted employee who was a bit frustrated with me. His complaint was that he was feeling a bit off balance. “Every time I think I know what you want me to do, you ask me to do more or do it better. You are impossible to keep up with”! My response was, “I may be hard to keep up with, but I’m always behind”. He looked at me thoughtfully and told me that he had no idea what I was talking about. As a business owner, how much stuff are we hit with day in and day out? I don’t know about you but I’m not only stimulated, but I’m over stimulated with things I have to do, things I should do and things I have no idea how to do but need to learn. It’s great to do what you’ve done before. You know how to do it and you can guess what the results will be. For most of us this includes the purchasing and designing side of our business. Face it, as florists we all love buying flowers and...

People ask me what it's like working with my husband. It's funny how many variations of this "question" I get. For example, the timeless "How on Earth do you work with your husband"? That's a positive one! "Do you sometimes want to kill each other?" is my personal favorite. For the most part, it works out fine and no, most days we don't want to kill each other. The best part is when we go home at night there is no need to ask how each others day was, because we already know! As he calls me, I'm the creative " visionary " that spends the money and he's the accountant, or " pain in the neck " that keeps me on a budget. For the most part, it's all good. Can spouses work together? I believe so, especially if they each bring something different to the table. He stays in his area and I stay in mine and we only tangle in each others space when absolutely necessary. As a management team I play the role of ...