My site will be undergoing some changes for the next two weeks.
Category: Uncategorized
Small Business Customers
I appreciate small business customers. I am the marketing, advertising, selling, operations, and an accountant for my business. In 2 months I have enjoyed this crazy ride of being an entrepreneur. I appreciate everyone liking, sharing my blog, my sites, and buying the merchandise (https://www.chloeandisabel.com/boutique/vince and http://www.kokoon.net/Vince-Abramo). There’s still Cyber Monday deals left.
I like to share quality products with amazing consumers. They get it.
They know the struggles of doing everything on your own and having the few supporters behind them. They love the products, and they love the service that we can only bring to the customer. I know these same people go to a huge grocery store or a big box chain. I understand that.
When my husband and I were buying diapers for our daughter, we thanked God for the Walmart angels that brought us amazing deals. I go through Costco once every four months to get toilet paper. I get it, and customers get it too.
I am a small business shopper. I love going into boutiques and checking out what the owner got on her trip or knowing she combed through millions of styles to get to the right piece. I also love going to restaurants or establishments where the owner knows you by name. I also love the small farms that are at farmer’s markets. True farmer’s markets with every stand having vegetables or fruits. Not these farmer’s markets with food trucks and other items for sales. Maybe we should call those food truck markets or other item markets.
I will lump in Chloe and Isabel and Kokoon with small business. They may have an army of women to sell as merchandisers, stylists or insiders but I know (like Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Rodan and Fields, Senegence, and Lularoe) the money is going to support a family like mine.
Kokoon was started by one woman (here is Laine’s story https://kokoon.net/pages/the-company). Chloe + Isabel was started by one woman (here is Chantel’s story: https://www.chloeandisabel.com/our-story/mission).
I am one woman with one leg and starting a small business. My story is my blog.
Thankful vs. Thoughtful
Being grateful and being kind are different processes but can be incorporated with each other. Gratitude comes in many forms: a thank you note, recognizing a person for their contribution in a group or tagging them on Facebook, or the reliable goody bag at the end of an event. Thoughtfulness is similar to thanking by sending a note to say I’m thinking about you, lifting someone up, or giving a person an omiyage (a gift to bring back to family and friends when you have traveled).
I admit it; I am not good at writing in my thankfulness journal. Honestly, I have written only three things that I am thankful for in that journal. I have heard that if you write down ten things that you were thankful for that day, you are a much happier person and content with your life. I do pray every day and thank God for three things – the people that I have met, the people I am going to meet, and the people that I will never meet. He knows the people that He will place in my life are people that will need the gifts that He has given me.
At times I have been thoughtful and thoughtless. I catch myself and assert what I think people should know, or I’ve been a real jerk and dismissed the person from collaborating with me and missed a golden opportunity.
Sometimes I surprise that person in such a way that I didn’t think my thoughtfulness made a difference. After 27 years one example has stood out for me. I used to send birthday cards to a lot of people before good old Facebook. I barely knew this person but found out his birthday and his address. He was amazed and was thankful for that one small act of thoughtfulness. I didn’t expect anything in return. I don’t think he knew my birthday or my address. At that age, everything was freely given, and I wasn’t guarded.
Life happened, and my thankfulness and thoughtfulness have changed. I think I am more thankful and less thoughtful. I want to work on having both equal and abundant and not be in competition with one another.
I am thankful for you my readers and joining me on this journey…..
Next blog: Small Business Customers
Connection
We connect in so many ways. We may think we are not connecting but even in our silence, we connect. Communication is different than connection. Many of us grew up thinking that person A speaks and person B listens then person B speaks and person A listens. Unfortunately, this is not what happens in communication and definitely not connection. Communication will be in an upcoming blog.
Finding common ground, sharing a meal, experiencing the same event, or getting to know someone over time are all ways we connect. When I speak to groups, I connect people through an experience that will tug at their hearts or I welcome their laughter when I share some of my adventures with trying to buy one shoe from a store.
Surprisingly, people come up to me after 10 or 20 years and say that I was in a classroom with them or they saw me at a grocery store. I have never met them but they found this connection by watching me be a positive force or I fell and picked myself up. There is a silent connection that is shared when people observe me. I am not an angel and I hope someone didn’t connect to those times I was an awful person (accountability partners will be in another blog). Okay, I know they did and it is so hard to connect with that person in a positive way.
When I connect, I hope that the connection is good and if it is not, I will accept the connection as negative, for that moment. If you would like to connect with me through Facebook, please go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/812803072232021/ or through email at bamboooshoothi@gmail.com.
next blog: Thankfulness vs. thoughtfulness
My body and resilience
My body is falling apart. I realize that about 7 years ago in between the Aloha Run and the American Cancer Society Walk. I felt that twinge in my hip. The doctor told me to stop entering races. I have this love hate relationship with exercise since that twinge. I’ve been active in exercise since college. I’m slowing down and I hate it. I used to carry both my kids without even thinking about it. It takes a lot of balance carrying two kids with one leg. Now, I can barely carry a laundry basket across the doorway.
I have this love relationship with food. I love all kinds of food. I especially love sweets and vegetables. Odd combination. My family would eat all the vegetables we grew in our garden and the ohana farm. I also love cake, cookies, ice cream, and candy.
In one month, the doctors have told me that I can’t have anymore cortisone shots in my arthritic hip, I am in danger of tearing my right shoulder, and I will need surgery for my hand. I’ve been up and down with my weight. I was at 115 at one point and down to 101 then up again to 108. My high blood pressure is high and was prediabetic.
Through all of this, I still have a goal. I want a strong core and I want to do stand up paddling. I’m not sure when I will do this but every body needs a goal when it comes to your health. I can imagine myself on the board at Magic Island trying to avoid the swimmers at sunset. I imagine one day I will not have excruciating pain in my joints.
I think that everyone has a gift when it comes to their bodies. You are so incredibly blessed if you have all your limbs and your body is functioning. Use it. I would. God did not create us to be still. God did not create me to eat all the sweets in the world (that would be heaven). Self control and discipline should bleed into every aspect of my life.
The wonderful silky custard pie still calls my name and I will be doing 300 crunches today.
Next blog: Connecting
bambooshoot 