Well, the rains have started in the Northwest. We had a glorious spring and summer, the best I have ever seen in the forty plus years I have been here. So now it's time to pay the piper for our beautiful greenery. Mid-summer I lost my mother, who had been residing in Florida, so we brought her ashes up here and put her in with my father at the national cemetery. They met during World War II in Washington DC. He was in the Army and she worked for the Bureau of Ships.
She told me that she used to have conversations with a Navy commander who was kind of an outcast at the time for his strange ideas - he turned out to be Admiral Hyman Rickover, the founder of the modern nuclear Navy. My late husband worked on some of the early nuclear subs in Groton. Connecticut, and one day he was overseeing repair work on one of the subs (after a famous collision at sea) and was very intent and not looking where he was going and accidently knocked over Admiral Rickover. He apologized profusely but the Admiral just told him, "don't worry, son, just keep up the good work!" My Navy son during his enlisted years served on a Trident nuclear sub based here in Washington State and we took a family cruise and took my mother along. Back in the days of World War II and Korea when she worked for the Navy, women weren't allowed on the ships after they were commissioned. She was so thrilled to be on one. Talk about coming full circle and six degrees of separation!
We have some new custom albums available in the store, and for the first time some civil war stickers have come out. Karen Foster has a new military collection and we finally have some rubber stamps for firefighters, EMTs, police and sheriffs.
This Memorial Day finds me having taken not my usual one, but two, bouquets of flowers out to Tahoma National Cemetery. The first for my father who has been there since the cemetery opened in 1997 and the second for my husband who was just laid to rest in January. My 14-year-old granddaughter came with me and I was glad for the company. As I mentioned in a previous post, Tahoma is called the Arlington of the West and this weekend you can see why as it is a beautiful weekend and the flag plaza looks out over Mt Ranier. There are flags lining the whole avenue and the local junior high school has placed American flags at every single gravesite. It is truly a site to behold. Our heroes rest in peace in a place of beauty.
Well, the year didn't exactly start out the way I planned. Right after the holidays were over I lost my husband of 26 years. It's been a tough few months, what with my retirement from my day job and taking over the entire Service Memories business myself. But it sure has kept me busy.
I've had a lot of support from family and friends, and each day the dog and cat trot upstairs with me to help with the orders. Well, actually, help is not the word. Jake just naps on one of his three beds and Barney darts in and out of boxes, on and off of shelves and my desk and otherwise gets into trouble. Any hair you find in your orders is theirs and provide at no extra charge.
As we get rolling along in this new life of "ours" we hope to present some new items. Some of them we will produce ourselves, others we have searched out. Our latest addition is a line of 2" medallions, gold-colored relief medallions and litho-etched or enameled medallions, for military, firefighters (including volunteer) and law enforcement (including Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.) Look for them under embellishments in your particular branch.
It is a busy time of year for me. I am getting ready to retire from my "day" job and have lots of exciting plans for the business. We have finished off our large attic and will move the business into it and I will operate it from there. One of our favorite suppliers, Memories in Uniform, has gone out of business and we may start producing laser die cuts ourselves to take up the slack. That will open up a lot of possibilities for our special customers in the law enforcement field. In November's newsletter I mentioned a new product from mydogtag.ca - custom dog tags in several finishes with different rubber silencers and fasteners to choose from. They are great for scrapbook pages and also for a gift for little ones to match Mom or Dad's. I got a sample set and used them for luggage tags.
Scrapbooking was a huge part of the CHA show, so I had a lot of booths to peruse. I feel lucky to be a specialty store. I don't know how regular stores choose among all the possibilities. I just have to ferret out what few things are available for my store and I do search long and hard.
Our new arrivals from the show include two new album types: Camo albums from Collected Memories in green and desert camo as well as the Life Jacket Albums from Memories in Uniform. They have cloth covers that unsnap so you can embroider on them, sew on patches and attach insignia. MIU also has new hero journal sets and modern and heritage emblem sets.
From Sugartree we have new World War II papers and a Gettysburg address paper that I really like.
For me, this new year is the start of my new life, free of cancer. I started it off by making plans to retire in a year from my day job and devote my time to this business, my true love. I have many plans to enhance the business and make more items available for those members of specialty groups within the military and law enforcement.
In the meantime, I keep close watch on the industry for any, and all, items that meet our customers' needs. I'm off to the CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) trade show in Anaheim on February 11th. We already have a few of the newly released items from Paper House Productions in-house, two police papers, police stickers, military epoxy stickers and military chipboard. I'm sure I'll find many more items at the show. More later after the show.
This Veterans' Day is a salute to our heroes, past and present, who have served and are serving their country. And I am also reminded of those who wait, for they also serve. We created our own Soldier's Cross Laser Cut in large and small sizes as a tribute. And Karen Foster has a new paper and cardstock sticker to remember those who have passed.
