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Written by Jan Parker
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Sunday, 23 September 2007 |
 I’m renaming my blogs as of next week. There are times that I’d like to focus on something besides bead collecting, like the business end of owning a bead store or any other business for that matter. What should I call it? Any suggestions readers? Email me and let me know.
I was in Florida last week and missed getting my blog in on time. I probably flatter myself to think anyone might have missed it, but if so, I apologize. I was spending time with my bead store co-owner and daughter Heather and her family including my two grandsons, Max (age 4), Alex (5 months) and son-in-law Chris. That is enough to distract anyone! Florida is a land of grandparents missing their grandchildren and our two attracted a lot of attention as we walked around Disney World (and on the airplane, in restaurants and anywhere else we went.) Alex was in a “Baby Bjorn” and facing outward so he’s pretty hard to resist as he loves to smile at people.
 While we were there, Heather and I took a morning off to look for old beads in antique shops. Most of them in the area we checked were closed on Monday and this happened to be a Monday of course. We found a few necklaces but the prices were too high to resell so we’ll put them into our own collections. Then we checked out the bead stores that we found in the area. We hadn’t done that for about 10 years and thought things had probably changed a lot since then. Ten years ago, we found rock and shell shops with a few beads, a shop with bars on the windows and doors (and not much that would entice someone to steal) and one little shop that was too small to offer much that we didn’t have in our own shop at that time. This time we went to two places. One was a cute small shop and the other was a bigger warehouse feeling place but not much new or out of the ordinary. We always find something though! We bought a few things as little gifts to our employees. It really opened my eyes again to how great our own store is! I can say that since I don’t have much to do with that part of the business. They stick me in the office and I sometimes wander downstairs and am always really amazed at the beautiful beads we have! I am a known shoplifter in the store. My grandson Max and I sometimes browse around and pick up things that catch our eye. I make sure he knows that this is the only place he is allowed to do this and only with his Mimi (me) or mother.
As for the business end of things, they were all waiting for me today. Medical insurance renewals for employees, quotes for network upgrades, UPS not working on one of our computers, requests for donations, a meeting with our payroll specialists about other services they offer, and so on. It’s back to work to keep it all running along. Goodbye Florida for now. !
eBay Auction
Vintage Confetti Lampwork
Glass Beads w/ Aventurine
eBay Auction
Vintage 1940's Cranberry
Matte Nugget Glass Beads
eBay Auction
Antique 1910 Hand-Faceted
Amber/Topaz Glass Beads |
