Boutiques Give Back - The Event

Saturday morning was bright and sunny - a beautiful start to Boutiques Give Back!  With the nice weather, I knew there would be a lot of people walking, dining, and shopping in Old Town!

On Thursday afternoon, the Animal Welfare League had delivered a large A-frame sign for me to display during the event.  While the rep was here, he also gave me some handouts about a program they are running called "Wild Flower Pets".  With the new puppy and kitten season upon us, there are some older animals at the shelter who haven't been adopted yet.  AWLA has placed a flower on the older pet's pictures on their website and they will waive 1/2 of the adoption fee for anyone selecting these pets!  While he was explaining the program to me, a customer in the store told us that she was trying to help her niece adopt a dog and this sounded like just what they needed!  So we got to hand out a flyer right then!

The combination of the two signs together was a great draw!

AWLA was a fantastic partner - using all forms of social media to alert people of the event.  While I've never been a huge fan of Twitter, I became a believer on Saturday.  A customer came in the store immediately after seeing a tweet about the event (and brought this gorgeous fellow below).

He even went "off leash" and accompanied his owner to the dressing room!

I didn't get to take pictures of all of our visitors but I also loved this adorable miniature Collie (Daisy).

I am so appreciative of PetSage for providing us with the cat and dog treats to hand out to everyone.  I even got to hand out some catnip to Mailman Dave (and found out he and his wife have 3 cats at home)!  He reported to me today that two of his three loved it!  

AWLA had told me that they would bring an adoptable dog to the store for a couple hours when I'm normally busiest.  I asked them to come between 12:30 - 2:30.  My heart completely melted when I saw Sally (a beagle mix).

She was SO sweet and enthusiastic and was really well-behaved.  And quite the charmer - one lady gave a donation to the AWLA volunteer after meeting Sally!  Of course, I had to have my picture taken with her and give her a little love and attention.

I will confess I would have loved to have brought Sally home.  It is a good thing that my husband is always the "voice of reason" with regard to things like this.  I could hear his voice in the back of my head, reminding me that she would need to be walked in the rain and snow!

I was pleased with the event and did much better with sales than I had done "on my own" the previous year (more for AWLA- yay!)  In my on-going quest to always figure out what I could have done better, I would have had a way for people to give direct donations to AWLA if they didn't want to buy something.  

Rain, Rain Go Away

I was chanting the words to this old nursery rhyme every day during our horrendous 4 days of rain last week.  The personal side of me finds rainy days calming and peaceful.  The businesswoman side of me can't stand them!

When I looked at the weather forecast on Labor Day and it said rain through Friday, I thought surely they had to be mistaken.  We'd just finished with the rains from Hurricane Irene the week before.   Weren't we "done" for a while?

Tuesday wasn't quite as bad.  I had started planning Zoe's Fall Open House over the weekend and the rainy day gave me time to finalize the schedule, determine the sale items, prepare the computer system, and send the email announcement.

Wednesday was a little worse.  I did get one bright spot in the day when my favorite Connection Newspapers photographer, Louise, arrived to take some pictures at Zoe for their weekly "Talk of the Town" feature on Fall Fashion.  Working with her and picking the items to be photographed was a nice break in a very quiet day.  I did have a woman come in who had been walking her dog in the rain.  I am always very welcoming of dogs at Zoe but I had to politely ask her is she had a towel and, if so, would she dry off her dog?  I could just see the dog shaking off the water from his coat all over the new Fall clothes!

Other favorite moment on Wednesday - a small sparrow came into the store (I don't blame the bird, probably wanted out of the rain!)  But, a very funny chase ensued as I tried to shoo my new tenant back out the door.  After about 5 minutes, the sparrow finally found the door again and departed.

Best attitude of the rainy week has to go to UPS Deliveryman Freddie.  He dropped two boxes off for me as he dragged a dolly up two sets of stairs to my landlord's space.  I told him that I hated that he had to be out in the weather.  He had a smile on his face and said "I already know I'm not going to be dry today so I might as well just enjoy it!"

We did get a short reprieve on Thursday and a few people ventured out.  I felt most sorry for the woman who came in my shop who had been visiting from Ft. Lauderdale.  She had traveled with her husband on Monday evening (he had a business meeting in DC).  She had not really been out of her hotel room the whole time due to the rain because she didn't have a car and had planned to walk everywhere!

The mini-cupcakes and champagne arrived for the Open House and I had Zoe ready to go.  Previous customer Carol and her husband Rob stopped by on their way home from National Airport to do some Fall shopping.  Just as they finished their selections and departed at shortly after 4 pm, it started to rain. Hard.  It got darker and worse as the evening went on.

Friends Mike and Maggie braved the rain to come to the Open House (afterward, it took them an hour to get home after all the flooding).  And friends Janice and Karen and their husbands came (risking life and limb driving up the GW Parkway from the Mt. Vernon area)!  Thankfully, everyone ate some cupcakes!

One customer and local resident told me that she was on her way (walking) when it started raining so hard that she had to turn around and go home!  I'll probably reschedule the event for another evening later in the month.  I don't want to complain too much.  Yes, I was disappointed but other than being inconvenienced driving home that evening, I did not experience any flooding at home or at Zoe.  Many other people in our area were not so fortunate.  Hopefully the money that Zoe will donate to the American Red Cross (the charity recipient for the evening) will help some of those people.

Friday, it was pouring again but finally stopped around lunchtime.  What was that warm, bright thing in the sky that we hadn't seen for so long???

Next:  Spring 2012 Fashion Shows (Don't Shoot the Messenger)