Once again I’ve allowed the busyness of business (and a bit of Facebook wasting time) to prevent me from posting a blog about my Dallas adventure last week. So here goes. I flew down to Dallas on Weds the 20th of June. Blessed to have so much family around! My brother Dennis and wife Leslie picked me up from DFW (they drove from Austin). After a quick refuel lunch at “Whataburger”, we proceeded to the Dallas Gift Mart to set up my booth, in record time I might add. The summer Dallas Gift Show is the first show of the Summer Gift Season and I was hopeful for big crowds and lots of orders! It ran from Thursday the 21st through Sunday the 24th. Sadly the big crowds didn’t materialize but I still managed to write a good number of orders and covered all my expenses with the orders written.
I love nothing more than standing in my booth and connecting with new people who discover my line and LOVE it….like Billie Kasper from the “Flower Basket” in Forney TX. Leslie, who helped me work my booth on Thursday, and I so enjoyed chatting with Billie. I asked about her unique name and learned about her amazing grandmother, who’s she’s named after. Her Grandma Billie was quite the woman entrepreneur herself…working with cosmetics and traveling back in the day when women were home! It was obvious she was a big inspiration in Billie’s life. I love hearing stories like that! I’m grateful that Billie loves each and everyone of her customers and I’m sure she’ll know which of my cards to suggest to people looking for something different.
Met Tina Fredrickson and her daughter who own a store called abaTina in Colorado Springs, CO. It is obvious from her business card even, which has photos of the store, that people love to walk into her shop. Ahhhh being the word that folks uttered when walking into her home as she knows how to make everyone feel so comfortable. I’m blessed that my cards are going to participate along with the good energy in the shop!
Tracy Schindler of Missouri City, Tx (outside of Houston) will be opening a new store called “Something Else” in August. I so resonated with her story of leaving the Corporate world to do this venture that she feels called to do…we talked about the need to take the “Leap of Faith” and no doubt it is when you are beginning a business. With her determination to be a positive light for others, I’m confident she’ll succeed in this new ministry as well. Again blessed to know that my cards will be part of her store. There was Keith Killgore, of Killgore’s Pharmacy & Gifts in Haynesville, LA who overrode his wife on the decision to buy my cards!! They’ve never carried cards but he felt it might be a perfect addition to the store so they bought a 24 pocket card rack and 24 sets of cards from me! Haynesville is a little town of 2500 people. The surrounding “parish”, as they are called in LA he explained, has about 16,000. They don’t even have a WalMart near by, that’s how small of a town they are, he explained. How fun that my cards will be there for these folks! I hope they all love them and purchase so many that Keith and Beverlee will reorder!
I’m going to attach a few of the set up photos and some of our cousins get together that Weds evening. Dennis and I have cousins (the Anderson’s) that live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area that we’ve seen quite a few times over the years. Another interesting story, I’m named after the Anderson’s Mom. She was my Mom’s sister, a stewardess for American Airlines back in the early 40’s, she met and married a business man who hailed from Texas. They settled in Texas (she from Chicago) and she had 4 children. Tommy being the oldest of all 34 of us O’Grady cousins. Tommy was followed by his sister, Maureen, and 2 brothers Jerry and Bob. Their Mom died when she was very young (30ish). Her husband died a few years later and the Anderson kids were raised by their Aunt and Uncle, their Dad’s sister. So though they were far away from the O’Grady clan up in the Chicago area they still managed to be in touch with us all over the many years at various times. When I knew I was going to Dallas I contacted Tommy. He and Sissy (Maureen) put together a fabulous evening gathering that included all their siblings, spouses and Tommy’s son Jeff, and his wife and 3 children plus our cousin, Vince O’Grady and his wife Dorothy. Vince and Dorothy did grow up in Chicago area but have lived in various places and 6 years ago relocated to DFW. So we had quite the O’Grady mini reunion. I felt so blessed to be part of the gathering! And to top off my lovely week, Vince and Dorothy offered to pick me up on the last day of the show, take me to dinner and to the DFW airport. The three of us took it down in record time as well! All in all it was a great trip.