Since a large part of this blog will undoubtedly be about my job, owning and running a flower shop, I thought I'd explain how that came to be my career of choice.
When I turned 13, my mom decided I needed a part time job. She thought working at the flower shop in my hometown (population 2,000) would be the perfect job so she convinced the owner to give me a job. I worked there for the first owner for about 2 years, then for another owner throughout all of high school and during winter and summer breaks of college up until my sophomore year of college.
At that time, I decided I needed to start working at school to support my shopping habit. I was attending UW La Crosse for Marketing and decided to call the flower shop that had the nicest looking yellow page ad in the phonebook.
Luckily, that was the right move. I had an interview an hour after my phone call and was hired on the spot. I told the owner my dream was to own my own flower shop eventually and looking toward retirement himself, the plan was for me to eventually buy the business years down the line.
I continued to work my way up with that floral company, opening grocery store, university bookstore and convience store floral department branches and eventually became general manager of the company.
When it was finally coming time to make the decision to buy or not to buy the business I had to seriously consider the financial responsibility I would be taking on, and decide if I thougth it was worth it. After months of toiling over the decision I decided it was not my dream shop.
Luckily, the day after I broke the news to the owners, the planets eveidentally all aligned and my finace', who was living in Eau Claire, called me to tell me the owners of a floral shop in Eau Claire that he knew were interested in me for a manager for thier shop. We met with them to discuss it but I had to tell them thank you but my dream is to own my own shop. I was done working for "the man", ready to work for myself.
To my total shock, the next day my fiance called me agin first thing in the morning. The owners had come to see him that morning with an offer to purchase their business. This shop was a much lower financial risk and just felt right. After 3 long months of working out the details of the purchase and a business loan, I was finally the owner of my own shop-at the age of 27!
So, working on building this business, finding out what it's past reputation has been and trying to repair the community's image of the shop are what I've been doing for the last 8 months....oh yeah, along with planning my wedding! Needless to say I have my hands full and hope to bring you some laughs and joy with some of my stories from this crazy time in my life.
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