The Shop

I'm still pretty surprised to find myself the (partial) owner of a children's resale shop. In a lot of ways I've been preparing for this since my son was born, 15 years ago. I've always stockpiled hand-me-downs, and thrift-shopped for clothes for him (and later his sister). I had an elaborate storage and inventory system to avoid overbuying, and the moment someone grew out of clothes (like, a half hour before we were supposed to go see Nutcracker) I could pop out to the shed, pull out new clothes of an appropriate size, and we were ready to go.

The shop will be like that, but on a grander scale. When we run low on size 4 boys shirts, I hope to pop back into the storeroom and resupply, easy-peasy. But seriously, a month ago, none of us had any idea of opening a shop!

So this past week has been pretty crazy, and the coming week looks like it will be pretty full as well. I need to go back to the Goodwill Outlet ("the bins") and rescue more clothes from the waste stream, and bring them back into use as an alternative to people buying new. We have washing, and reorganizing, and building, and cleaning to do in the shop. My house would really love it if I spent a little time here, maybe washing some of our own clothes. But we'll see.

My efforts at minimalisting have definitely paid off in the last couple weeks. My wonderful husband was able to go grocery shopping for me, and I have a menu plan for this week. I'll be able to feed my family, thanks to my husband and the plan. We're not tripping over debris, due to the decluttering, and I am hopeful that the mounds of dog hair that are developing in the corners will be swept away today before they coalesce into spontaneous puppies (they're getting pretty big!).

So, hopefully I will be more present online after this week, but I am really grateful for the change that has occurred over the last six months or so. I can move forward with this new endeavor (with my mother and sister) because of the changes I have made over the last year. Hopefully I will be able to continue both the shop and minimalisting after the store opens Saturday!