Those were the days...

Over the past few days David and I have been reminiscing about how much fun we had when we had our business in California. We decided to open a scrapbook store in 1996, got the paperwork going and opened in early 1997, the first and only Scrapbook Store in the entire Bay Area! We had no idea what would come of it, but you know, looking back, I never hesitated. I never had any doubt about what we were doing. We had a partner the first year and a half, but bought her out and started our 'own thing'. David and I worked together and actually enjoyed working together - most of the time. We really did work well together. He balanced me out and kept me grounded. I say he was my rock, he really was, and still is.

The business grew so fast! It was amazing how fast it grew. Again, I never doubted it for a minute. I actually had some landlords tell me they wouldn't rent me space because they didn't think I would be there a year later. (I wanted to send them an Anniversary Sale postcard every year!) There was no time to think about failing, failure was not an option. People would tell me that if you could make it to 7 years, then you could 'make it'. I remember thinking 7 years was so far away, but before I knew it, 7 years was the next Anniversary we were celebrating. That's when I remember realizing that 7 years was not a magical number. It was almost like I had built up in my mind that if I made it to 7 years I could relax and enjoy the ride. Boy was I wrong! I worked harder at 7 years and after than I ever did before. By 7 years scrapbooking was not a novelty anymore, stores were everywhere and we had to be creative about how to stay ahead of all the rest of the stores. Hitting 10 years was huge! Some stores had come and gone by then, but we were still there and going strong. We actually had two stores at this time. We opened our second store - about 40 minutes away - in July 2000. It was a huge undertaking. It changed a lot of the 'structure' of the business, but I never wanted to change the 'core' of the business. We hired managers for each of the stores, split our time and inventory between the stores, bought a house near the second store and ended up communting (across a toll bridge) to the first store daily, sometimes 3 times a day. Boy, I spent a lot of time in my car...

It's so easy to remember all the good times, and there were MANY!!! But the stress of it all really got to me at times. I had to try and balance the business with my family. While I had the business, I had 4 more children. (we opened before Michael turned 1) The stress was really bad at times, usually Expo time! But you know, with all the stress, we still had fun! There are so many things I want to remember about having the business. I will never forget how hard it was from time to time, but I never want to forget the good times too. I could write a novel with all the things I want to remember, but I will spare you that!

*Managers - We had some GREAT managers and some not-so-great managers. I have to say my all time favorite managers are definately Jen, Kari and Ali. They are the ones I clicked with the best. We all had our own understanding of each other and we had some FUN times. Laughed until we nearly wet our pants on many occasions. Trips to CHA with Kari and Jen were definately times I will cherish FOREVER! I am totally cracking up just thinking about all the fun trips we took! CHA was not work, it was FUN! Ok, it was also a lot of really long days, long nights, financial stress and so much walking our feet cried at night! But the fun so totally outweighed those things! Let's see, I think it was in Atlanta that Jen cried when she didn't get to meet Lisa B, but then the CK employees felt so bad they called Lisa and Lisa met Jen and Kari personally. I think Kari still has her phone number in her phone... Also in Atlanta, (oh Atlanta was a great trip!) we got a personal escort to the hotel by a street bum who wanted a tip. We got the eye-opening experience of riding the public 'rail' system from the convention center to the airport with all our luggage in tow. Can't believe we actually made it with all our luggage still in our possesion. So many fun things in Atlanta. Some managers we don't really want to remember, like the one who said I fired her because David wanted to sleep with her. Or the one who deliberately got pregnant because her husband might get deployed and then couldn't stop complaining about her husband being deployed with her being pregnant.

*Employees - I had some of the BEST employees in the world!!!!!! Seriously I did! David talked recently about how we (as a store) had a 'following' of customers, but our employees had a following too! There were many customers that would only come in when their *favorite* employee was there. We had so many employees over the years, but seriously we had some of the BEST!!! I still keep in contact with so many of them and I hope to forever!! I would list them, but there are so many, and they know who they are. I adore each one of them and I cherish our friendship. We had some fun times too. Angelica kept us laughing in Vacaville until we were all crying. Employee scraps were the best! The jokes ("so redic"), the food (ummm... Whoppers, baby!), the music (what was that station you all hated?) everything! And there were some employees we will never forget, even though we want to... (no names, sorry) 'black horse and a cherry tree' girl, 'Oh I thought you meant with the vacuum' girl, the interview of the girl that told me she wanted to be upfront about the fact that she was arrested for a hit and run, but added 'but it's not like it was a felony or anything.' And all the employees who took the job and then quit after the first day because they thought they'd be scrappbooking while working and didn't realize you actually had to 'work' while on the clock. Yeah, those were the best ones...

*Designers - We had some *bomb* designers and some bum designers over the years. It was fun to add this part to the business. I got to know a whole new side of the business and a whole bunch of gals that were very talented. There were times I am sure they wanted to wring my neck, but they really turned out some incredible pages for classes. We really were known for our classes. We shipped our class kits all over the country. We ran our classes differently than any other store I knew of. Our designers created the classes and the teachers taught the class. My theory was that some of the best designers don't make great teachers and some of the best teachers don't make great designers. So we offered the best of both. We had the best designers and the best teachers. It worked great! Unless you were the kit collator and you wanted to strangle the designers from time to time! (some of those pages were a little more labor intensive than others!) But I did meet some incredible gals that have so much talent! Some even went on to design for manufacturers and I think all of our designers were published in various magazines!

*Teachers - Like I said, we had the BEST teachers out there! The teachers had the best job, I think. I absolutely loved teaching! LOVED it!!! We kept our teachers for a long time, too. We didn't have to replace them very often. Karolyn was with us for, gosh, 8 years?? Karma was with us for about the same. I grew to love these girls as well. I was always sad when one moved and we had to replace her. I even get to see one of them regularly! Kerrie lives here in AZ now and I get to see her often! Love you girl! Karma and I actually traveled to teach at Expo's together. Now those were some fun times, too! Searching out a Mickey Head punch at all the local scrapbook stores, the long talks into the night about nonsense ('how much does a stone weigh?' I still laugh til I cry about that one). The Mickey gloves, the Disney music, the 'woo woo!' laying out all those Disney samples and selling those dang Disney kits!!! Loved going on the road and teaching! It was so fun!

*Expo's - I loved and hated Expo time. Hated them because the stress was sometimes too much to handle. (ummm... Sandylion!! What do you mean you haven't shipped my order that I ordered 2 months ago so I would for sure have it in time for the show!!!!!!!!!!!!! this conversation happening just a week before the show and the company is in CANADA!!! Go ahead an overnight everything for an additional $100 bucks or more so I can get my kits done!!!!!!! grrrr.... no I am not bitter...) So many things came up at Expo time. It was almost like they knew and they wanted to punish us. Jen would call to verify a certain item was in stock, in the quantity we needed (like 120 of them), so we could use it for a class page. She'd then order it that day and it wouldn't ship because it was out of stock! Class kits always seemed to be missing something or another -until we got Jenne as out kit collator. She was the *bomb*!!! Classes were always the most stressful part of Expo, but then when you teach 15 classes a day to 50 women in each class, there are bound to be stressful moments. That's a lot of kits to collate! My 'favorite' class moment was when I turned my back for -literally- 30 seconds and someone stole my samples! So I had to teach class with no project samples!!!! Fun times... not! But we also had a lot of fun at Expos. The flat tire on the suburban in San Jose that Mr. Shirtless changed for us (he was too eager to pose for pics -of course we had a camera!). The woman that asked Joella to sweep her booth when she was done with ours. The largest U-Haul truck available FULL of XXL bags! (It was our back stock! and Yes, we sold them all!) The line that wrapped our booth, the trip to Hawaii we 'tried' to give away (no one claimed it), the year Susan Branch was in our booth signing books, the yearly themes for the booth - Western was the most fun! We brought in hay bales and built a fence around the booth. Tropical was also a fun one. We brought in real palm trees and had them all over the booth. David taking his chair and following 'the shoplifter' all around the booth. Wherever she would stop to shop, he would set his chair down next to her and watch her -yes, she knew he was following her. She didn't steal anything from us. Oh and all the broken chairs every year. David knew where every Michael's and JoAnn's was in Pleasanton because he made many trips to get things we forgot or ran out of -paint, sponge brushes, ribbon, twine, etc. David always brought us -teachers- lunch. You see, I was in the classrooms with the teachers all day and David ran the booth. It worked really well. Karma would get her class all hyped up and they would yell to the other class, usually Karolyn or Kerrie's class. They would have 'hollering' contests between them. We had the whole building to ourselves, just for our classes. It was the best! I really did love Expo's. I hated the prep, but once we were there, it was great!

*Our Customers -We had some awesome customers. I loved our customers. I loved seeing them and missed them when I was pre-occupied with the other store. It seemed I was 6 months in one store then 6 months in the other. We had some really wonderful customers. I loved hearing their stories, we shared our memories, went through hard times together and really connected with so many of them on a personal level. So many babies born, so many new puppies and kittens, graduations, birthdays, vacations, retirements, holidays, sports, you name it. I loved hearing about their kids, their vacations and sharing in their trials. I really miss so many of our customers. We did have our share of customers I'd like to forget too. There weren't many, but there are always those 'few'. Jen and I have joked for years we need to write a book on the funny experiences we had with our customers. The girl who asked if she could pray for Jen, and then did, right there in the middle of the store! The one that brought in her 'bad girl' pictures and asked Jen to help her find paper to go with them -all while I am teaching in the other room and getting really odd looks from Jen. My personal favorite was the one that told me she knew the owner, then asked me what her name was. When I told her Brenda she responded with 'yeah, that's it' then continued telling me how she knew her well. Then when the phone rang and my employee came over and said 'Brenda, you have a call' the customer replied 'You must be a new owner.' Nope, I've been here since the beginning. The girls told me often how they would hear many times a day "I know Brenda". One of them wanted, so badly, to say 'Really? Is she nice?' I just laughed, because I know her too! :)

*Misty's Scrap Weekends -My sister would fly out every 6 months to spend a weekend scrapping in the store. She would always bring at least 1 other person with her. Usually 3 others would come. One time there were 10 that came! Phew, that was a lot of people in my tiny 1,000sq ft 2 bd 1 ba house in Pleasant Hill! It was always so much fun when she came to town. So many comments and jokes and stories. We laughed more when she was in town than any other time, I think. All the employee's loved scrapping with us. We would literally 'camp out' in the classroom the entire time she was here. It was great because we could leave our stuff out all weekend. It was the only time I would allow the employees to come into the store on Sunday to scrap. It started out as just a 2 day thing and ended up a 5 day trip in the end. It was so much fun! We'd play Bingo, get food at 2am, go home at 6am to sleep for a couple hours and come back by 10am to start all over again. It was the only time of year that I would scrap for myself. It was always a contest to see who could do the most pages -Sharisa or Kristen always won! We played phone pranks on the managers -Misty's new name will forever be LaFawnduh at any scrap weekend. There were so many inside jokes that people would just look at us and wonder what planet we came from as we would laugh so hard we were crying most of the time. I truly miss those weekends!

There are so many things I miss about having the store. We really did have a great time. We really did pour our heart and soul into those stores. We sold the Pleasant Hill store (our first store) June of 2007. We knew the end was near. We knew we needed to move -out of state- but didn't know where yet. Then in 2008 we moved to Arizona and ended up closing our Vacaville store. David and I flew back to close it out just 3 weeks after we had moved. Only I had to come back before the final day we were open. I said my goodbye's and knew it was over. I was excited to start a new life in a new state. But I have to say, the last day the store was open, I lost it around 4pm. I cried and cried and couldn't stop crying until David got home 3 days later. It actually hit me that it was over. We closed up August 30, 2008. One of my girls got married the next day. David went to the wedding and hung out with all the other girls. I remember Jen calling me from the wedding just sobbing. We cried on the phone together for at least 10 minutes. It was so sad to realize that it was all over. I was also sad I couldn't be at Angelica's wedding. I just couldn't stop crying. Everything I had known for the last -almost- 12 years was over. It seemed so final. And to be apart from David and all my employee's that I had grown to love so much. It was tough.

We did have some great times. I still miss it from time to time. And not just when I have to go pay full retail for something! I truly miss the daily conversations with employee's, customers, teachers, designers, vendors. I miss the feeling of pure joy and excitement when new product came in. I miss the challenge of finding a place for it in the store. I miss developing new classes, playing with new tools, running to Baskin Robbins for Ice Cream or Subway for lunch, I really miss teaching classes, hiring and training new employee's, employee scrap nights, celebrating birthdays, employee meetings (even if they were boring or surprise birthday parties, surprise baby showers or an actual meeting!). There is so much I do miss. I will cherish all the memories I have forever. I will always long to re-live the many wonderful moments I shared with so many people over the years. I hope to never forget all the good times and hope to go back and visit - and scrap- with those that are still there.

If you are a Remember When employee reading this, or a customer, please share your favorite memories with me. I'd love to hear them and re-live them with you. I miss you all so much! And I will be coming back for a visit very soon! :)