It's easy in life to catch yourself always looking ahead. What am I going to have for lunch? Whats the next vacation I want to plan? When can I retire again?! But occasionally, and I suppose especially on anniversaries, it's nice to pause and look backward and remember how you got to where you are right now. This picture is from the day I signed the lease to our first location in the Saratoga Marketplace. I'd spent my whole mature life daydreaming, visualizing and working towards owning my own store, and here I was actually holding the keys. It was a small, empty, dusty, desperately in need of a paint job, tucked away corner unit, but all I could see was potential. I used blue tape to map out the fixtures I would buy and bribed my parents with burgers and beer to help me paint it top to bottom. Slowly furniture and product started to arrive and give color to what I had dreamed up in my head. The first year of owning a business is challenging and tests you in ways you anticipated and many more ways that you hadn't. Anyone will tell you this. The second year of business is filled with cautious optimism: you finally have something to compare against and get excited if you are doing a bit better than the year before. The third year in my story was navigating a global pandemic. Enough said. Now wrapping up year four I can say that it has felt perhaps the most rewarding of them all. As the world started to open up more and more, due in large part to the distribution of vaccines, we were excited to see familiar faces with more frequency and welcome new friends into the fold. As a management team we sought to be more creative. We were finally able to go to markets again, allowing us to adopt new brands and product lines, and we invested in fresh photography to capture our excitement for our new arrivals with the backdrop of the town we proudly call home. Everything we do is with our customers in mind, seeking to create an environment that makes you feel as comfortable shopping with us as you will feel in our cozy clothes. Looking forward once again, as we have the privilege to do because of customers like you, we are energized and inspired and ready for the next year ahead! Cheers!

xo, LO

February 07, 2022 — Lindsay O'Connor

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