DC & WIHS

I had a ridiculously fun weekend.  In my almost 8 months at iContact, I can count on one hand the times I've sort of dreaded going into work, and today was one of those days, just because I had such a good time this past weekend.  Mother and I went up to DC to check out the vendors at the Washington International Horse Show.  We figured if any show might have vendors doing the same thing as what I want to do, one of the Indoors shows would be the place to see some competition.  While we went to DC for the horse show, we sure did have a great time playing in the city.  Its been 9-10 years since I visited DC, and I hope I don't have to wait that long to go back again.

We left Thursday after I got off of work, drove to Richmond, and stayed the night in the Jefferson hotel there.  It was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l and I hope I'm lucky enough to go back one day for more than one night.  Bonus points for the Jefferson - KILLER smoked salmon and creme fraiche for breakfast, Friday morning.

We arrived in Washington at about noon, and figured we wanted to do a little sightseeing before dinner and the show.  Georgetown was only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel, so we wandered around some stores we don't get to go in often (Frye! Barbour! drool...) and also walked back in the neighborhood away from the hustle and bustle for a bit.  I love love love Georgetown.  It was like Charleston, but in its own, less coastal way.  It was especially beautiful because it was fall and the leaves were all changing.  I will definitely go back there next time.  I also really liked Georgetown because we went in a great designer consignment store with a lot of really nice items, which just makes me all kinds of excited.  It's like treasure hunting for discount Chanel, Hermes, Louboutin....

Anyways!  It was getting late in the afternoon and we had an early dinner at the Blue Duck Tavern, and then on to the show!  Dinner was DELICIOUS!  I had a surprisingly good sparkling wine from VA, foie gras, crab and a cheese plate.  If only I could eat that every day of the week!  We arrived a little late to the show, but still in time to watch the Puissance (high jump).  While there were only 5 entries, it was still really exciting because neither my mom nor I had ever seen a Puissance in real life.  The high height for the night was 6'11" - pretty incredible, even though it was nowhere near the record.

Adorable ringmaster!

Darraugh Kenny

ADORABLE horse with Chris Jayne that bucked all around the ring, every time he came in the ring!

Tim Gredley & Unex Valente with the Puissance

Saturday we slept in a little, before heading out to do a little more touristing.  We went to the Hirshorn Art and Sculpture Museum, which I remember really liking when I was in DC a long time ago.  It is easy to see everything, but the pieces are still really intriguing.  We then ran through the Natural History museum, cruised by the White House, and arrived at the Jefferson hotel in DC for tea!  We needed a midday snack because we were not planning to eat until after 10:30 or later when the Grand Prix ended.  I love tea, so of course I was totally embarrassing and took a million pictures.

Hirshorn Museum

We had a little time to kill after tea, but before the show, so we met up with one of my mom's horse show friends who was in town for a gala with her husband.  We had drinks in the lobby and it was a fun break in the day.

We arrived at the show pretty early, because I wanted to walk around all the vendors to see their spaces, how they set up, and most importantly, what was there.  It was almost embarrassing how bad some of the vendors were.  WIHS is advertised a lot to the public, so I think some of the vendors were bad because their market was not horse people, but some of them were just the total opposite direction of what I want to do with my business.  Which is good, because I don't have a lot of competition, but also bad because there wasn't a lot to learn from.  I'm hoping to maybe go to Wellington in the spring for one last show to check out potential businesses doing the same thing as I, and also seeing what the set ups are at the biggest shows in the country, since I haven't been to many.

Celebrity Barrel Racing!

Celebrity Barrel Racing

Terrier races!

Brianne Goutal & Nice de Prissey

Kent Farrington & Blue Angel

Kent Farrington & Blue Angel

Beezie & Coral Reef Via Volo

Kent Farrington & Blue Angel - Grand Prix winners

It was such a productive weekend.  I feel so inspired and motivated by what I saw, that I'm about to bubble over with excitement.  I think I didn't want to come to work today because I am so happy at horse shows and it was hard to come back to my not dream job (although I still love iContact).  I have so many things on my to do list, and so many exciting things in the works, that its hard to stay grounded and keep everything in order.  I still need a name!!  That is my number one priority!!  Once I have the name, everything is going to fall into place.  But it's sort of daunting thinking of a name, when I'm really hoping my business is going to turn into something really spectacular.  One thing I am really excited by, that keeps distracting me is the possibility of designing my own furniture to sell.  A number of people have told me that there are people in High Point who can build furniture for me, if I just make the design.  That's something that I think I could be really good at, so its hard to not have the creative juices flowing in that direction, when I need alllllll my brain resources thinking of a name.  Stay tuned.....

HPMKT & more...

I had a super, super fun weekend!  My mother and I decided to visit Fearrington this weekend since its getting close to the time of year when Kyle and I will be married.  I wanted to check out the leaf color in late October, and then again in early November, so see if I like the date I picked, since I have time to change it, and also to see the color in all the different ceremony venues they offer.  We had lunch at the Granary, and it was ah-may-zing!!!!  I can't even image how good Fearrington House must be, since the less nice restaurant was so tasty.  It was a little of a gray day, but as usual, everything was beautiful out there.  I'm lucky Fearrington is beautiful no matter what the weather!

Outside the Granary

AMAZING salad!!

Tasty baby ivy things

Crab & Cauliflower risotto! SO good!

Look at her in her festive fall pants!

After Fearrington, the fun continued as we went to Southern Season to get a teapot & olive oil.  Mother was supa nice and bought me 2 bottle of reds wine from Languedoc!  I can't wait to try them!!

Kyle had plans with friends Saturday night, and my plans for Saturday fell through, so my mom and I went out to eat again - to Poole's downtown.  Poole's is always awesome, but holy moly they were extra on point on Saturday.  They had a lobster and avocado appetizer that was just killer.  I think I could have eaten my weight in that lobster.  I also had some rabbit liver pate - yummmmm.  I'm writing this at the end of the work day and I'm hungry... can you tell???

***

My mother and I were lucky enough to gain passes to the High Point Furniture Market on Sunday.  You cannot get into HPMKT unless you have a tax ID for a business related to furniture or homewares.  Shout out to Mrs. Byerly and Emily for helping us borrow some passes!!  I'd been planning on going to HPMKT to see some furniture I'd noticed on the web and Pinterest, and Market was everything I expected and more!

The best part of the whole day, was going to our first showroom.  It was Stanford Furniture, of which, Julie Browning Bova (JBB) is a designer.  I'd seen a LOT of her stuff on Pinterest and it is all equestrian themed, so therefore, perfect.  We walked in and after a very embarrassing interaction regarding our passes (they were Sales passes, not Buyers passes, and didn't have our name on them... so they caused us a little bit of trouble) we were in!  A rep named Cindy showed us around a lot of the showroom, and we told her we were especially interested in Julie's furniture.  Cindy went to check to see if Julie was in the showroom at that moment and luckily she was!! She told us about all the pieces, her inspiration for some of them (because she and her daughters show horses as well), gave me one of her custom belt buckles, and told us about how things generally sell at shows.  It was SO informative and so exciting to meet her. It definitely started the day off right!  See a lot of her products below!

Two different versions of the "Harley" chair and the "Pacer" table

All of these are from JBB, except the saddle chair, which is from Halo

The "Gallop" mirror and "Yonkers" ottoman are JBB - the two tables are Halo

Julie and I!

After a great stop at Standford, which lasted almost a whole hour, we walked a few blocks down to Halo Furniture.  Halo is a UK-based furniture company that had two HUGE showrooms.  They are famous on Pinterest for the saddle chair (pictured above) but they had a lot of great thick wood and iron tables which would fit in a farmhouse (see above also).  Halo got on my good side too because they had all this English food like scones (and awesome clotted cream!) and finger sandwiches and tea!

After Halo, we went the the remaining three outdoor (ie not in a giant building filled with many furniture companies) showrooms I wanted to go to, but those three were not quite fits for what I need.  I thought Clubcu would be reclaimed barn wood, but it was weird and Indian styled. EJ Jarvis carried Ralph Lauren home collections, but they told me that RL usually only works with retailers who have a brick & mortar store, and not just online.  So maybe something for the future.  Finally, we went to Swaim, which looked like WEF-style furniture on their website but it was VERY pricey, and not quite as good of a fit in real life.

After we finished our outdoors showrooms we had a well deserved lunch break before exploring the accessories floor and up-and-coming-designers floor in the International Home Furnishing Center building.  We found some good artists with some equestrian offerings on the accessories level.  I got very excited when we went to the up-and-coming-designers floor because one vendor, Shiner, was selling coffee tables shaped like states, but even more so when we found a bar ware company, Zodax, that had an equestrian line.

2 Art companies I liked; First 3 by Art Classics LTD, Second 3 by French Linen by Tapestries LTD

Zodax equestrian bar collection - not even as awesome as what we saw at HPMKT

Overall Market was a success - I now have somewhat of an idea of pricing.  My next goals are: 1) Name!
2) Tax ID 3) get website & logo 4) get into Atlanta Gift Market.  The first 3 goals are necessary to register for the Atlanta market, as is an invoice for wholesale purchases in the gift industry.  The Atlanta market is in January, so I don't know if I can get everything done before then, but I'm certainly going to try!  I am so inspired after visiting the HP Market this past weekend, and more excited than ever.  Maybe I can actually pull off this thing???

*** NOTE: a lot of the pictures on the blog are from Google or the company websites.  I only took a few of the pictures from Market***

Sienna's X-Ray

Sienna wants you all to know she is very talented because she was able to swallow the racquetball halfway down her throat.  Below is the x-ray the vet took of her when we first brought her the the emergency clinic on Sunday.  The arrow is pointing to the racquetball, which you can see is somewhat pushing on her trachea (the darker gray right above the ball) which was making it hard for her to breathe.  I would like to point out that STG saw this x-ray and immediately busted out laughing.  It is amusing, now that she is alive and well.

Shoutout to Mike at work for helping me find this image on the CD the vet gave me.  I am terrible with all kinds of technology.

A Diva's Got to Have Her Sidekick

Here is the photo shoot Sienna's been promising you for a few months now (she was a little camera shy, but still adorable).  She's doing SO well - no allergies, well-mannered, and racquetball free!

This one is my favorite

First Visit to Nashvegasssss

Kyle, Matt and I all flew off to Nashville last week to visit Cindy.  It was tons of fun, jam packed of activities, but also very relaxing! On Friday when we got in, we stopped by Cindy's house to drop off all our stuff, which in true Cindy form, was an absolutely adorable, impeccably decorated little cottage.  Like I want to live there.  We then went to eat dinner at Hattie B's and then off to Marathon Music Works (owned by Cindy's neighbors) to see Phoenix.  Except I'm a baby and shortly after I got there I got really tired so Cindy and I went home to bed.

On Saturday, I slept in, which was AWESOME.  We had plans to go to the Nashville Beerfest, but we left a little early so Cindy could drive us around a little to see the city.  First of all... I love Nashville.  There are all of these neighborhoods which have awesome older houses that are renovated and are all so unique.  In Raleigh, people just bulldoze old houses to rebuild huge monstrosities.  They didn't do that in all these great neighborhoods in Nashville.  In addition to all the cool houses, the neighborhoods have tons of local restaurants and shops that I could wander around forever, I think.  This makes me so excited to go back to Nashville!

The beerfest was pretty cool - a little hot, but it was okay.  The best part though, was as many samples as I wanted of the Tennessee Whisper whiskey cream.  Holy moly that stuff was good!  Kyle bought us some bourbon cream from Buffalo Trace, so I can have something similar at home.

Then I went home and took a nap because I enjoyed the whiskey cream a little too much.

It's a little confusing, but then that night, we all went to watch two guys from the movie Beerfest (and also Super Troopers) and it was hilarious.  Beerfest is one of my favorite movies, so I really liked seeing the guys in person.

After the standup comedy, we went to a great french bistro type restaurant called BLVD.  I ate the second half of Cindy's chicken salad sandwich the next day - holy moly it was the best I've ever had!!!

Saturday - overall success!!

Sunday was rainy and dreary, so we just hung out at Cindy's house.  Her neighbors, the ones who own Marathon Music Works, came over with their son, and had dinner with us, so it was a fun end to a relaxing day.  Although I nearly died from putting too much hot sauce on my food.  I should have known better though... it was from Cindy's refrigerator....

Monday was sort of sad because we had to pack up...but then Cindy drove us around more of the neighborhoods (LOVE) and around Vanderbuilt some.  I like seeing other campuses, just to see how they are all different.  Plus the Vanderbuilt area had some great shopping!!  

And then we had to leave, and that sucked :( But the view was decent :)

I love you Blue Ridge Mountains

A big huge THANK YOU to Cindy for hosting us last weekend!! I can't wait until next time!

***

In other news... Kyle and I had a little scare today.  We were out doing yard work, and Sienna was playing with her racquetball, and next thing I know, the ball is gone and Sienna is acting strangely.  Sienna SOMEHOW swallowed the WHOLE racquetball.  I have no idea how.  But she did.  So then I FREAKED OUT.  Kyle and I tried the Heimlich maneuver on her, tried slapping her on the back, and tried to reach down her throat to pull it out.  But she bit both of us, so then we rushed her to the emergency vet, which is luckily a mile and a half from my house.  I seriously thought she was going to die, and was absolutely hysterical.  So many thanks to Kyle for being the maniac driver that got Sienna to the emergency vet.  The vet that came out originally told us he didn't know if he would be able to pull the ball out and would then have to push the ball into her stomach and remove via surgery (aka $$$).  Luckily, once they sedated Sienna, they were able to get the racquetball out.  So she is now on painkillers, and is sleeping soundly because of her eventful day.  It was so incredibly scary and she is never ever getting near a ball ever again.  

Another BIG BIG thank you to Stephannie for dropping her studying to come find Kyle, Sienna, and I to make sure everything was okay!  You are such a good friend!!

Slight Change to the Life Plan

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents.....

So you know back a few months ago, I said I had a little idea in my mind (Nostalgia Blog Post).  Deep breath, deep breath... I'm finally ready to tell y'all what it is, because at this point it has some possibility of coming to fruition.

Y'all get to hear the long version.

I was walking Sienna, maybe back in May or June, and I was thinking about my life.  My mom has always told us to find a way to 1) do what we like and 2) work for ourselves.  This is going to sound immature and materialistic probably, but the only things I love enough to devote an entire life to, are horses and shopping.  I've decided to look into starting a store for equestrian-themed house wares, furniture, and accessories.  My reasoning behind it is that there are few stores that are sort of a one-stop-shop for quality products.  Most of the house wares I found are cheap, and usually sort of western, as opposed to classic, timeless, equestrian products.

Product Examples

My plan is to start an e-commerce website, and establish myself online first and foremost.  For my fam out there, no - not quitting the day job until if/when the business becomes profitable to support me.  I also plan to travel to some of the major horse shows on the east coast and set up a vendor booth to increase sales and awareness (working vacations, lol).

I've decided now is a good time to tell you, because I just had a mentoring session on Tuesday, through a branch of the Small Business Association.  It was really good!  They told me that my business plan is very well thought out so far, and I've put more work into it than most people they speak with for the first meeting.  We talked strategy, and options, and now my goal is to create a financial model.  Not the easiest thing because math is not my strong point, but if I can't do that, then I can't run a business.  That's my motivation.

I'm actually pretty scared thinking about starting a business, and very nervous of failure, but my plan is to do the entire business plan before making the decision to implement it or not.  Hit me up if you want to read my rough draft business plan, or want more details.

Also, if any of you readers are horse people (or not) please take my survey to help me determine interests!  It is only 15 questions!!

** Equestrian-Themed Product Purchase History Survey **