The Family Jewels

mama warned me

My mama warned me not to discuss religion or politics in public and lord knows that money talk was taboo, so here I go again.  Guess I'm still hard-headed and getting more that way as I grow a little gray.  I should have posted this email here when I sent it out the other day cuz it's so much better if we can all talk here instead of in individual emails.  I know for me, I've heard a lot from people who, like us, need to hear that we're not alone in our struggles at this point in time.  That we're there for each other and that we can make a difference.  Have to watch it or I'll get on a pulpit here, am reading The Audacity of Hope at the moment. Next I'll read Hard Call, have to give equal time to both sides to have an informed opinion in this election. Since I covered religion in the attached email, I'll follow my mama's advice and keep my mouth shut about politics for a while anyway.  It's time to focus on the beads!  Hi Ya'll

It sure feels good to be back "among the land of the living" after five days in dental pain *ell, a blurred routine of pain and meds, not a pretty sight for sure.  Wouldn't it be awful to live that way?  It makes me have compassion for addiction to pain meds, what a vicious cycle.  In a way, I'm lucky God gave me a sensitive stomach, always at some point, I choose to face pain over nausea.  Sheesh, I am breaking all the rules here again, should have learned the lesson last week.....  but I never have been one where the rules all fit nicely. As I sat here trying to get my bearings after the past week of fog, I started thumbing through the comments in last weeks survey about the Divine Market.  There's a big split among even our friends here between those who were open to new ideas and those who expressed concern that we were embracing eastern mysticism, that we couldn't possibly be christian, that they wouldn't do business with us if we "believed in yoga", and so forth.   Rather than bury my head in the sand and pretend that we all agree on everything, I feel compelled to let you know that this was one of my big reasons to want to do the Divine Market was to promote understanding and tolerance among people but I guess I wasn't really being totally honest up front.  It sounds much safer and more marketable to be simply natural and organic than spiritual.  But the double entendre is there on purpose.  The Divine Market itself is a good name for us because it can cover such a spectrum, from our brick and mortar storefront of a downtown fresh gourmet market to our online presence with natural products directed toward healing.  As far as the religious connotation, I do envision also offering daily living type spiritual tools of different faith backgrounds, sort of like a "beliefnet" marketplace.  As the daughter of a jewish mother who attended a catholic boarding school and a  methodist dad who was raised during the depression in the south, I've always been exposed to multiple faiths and therefore just have always had sort of a built in respect for different beliefs and cultures.  My path has led me to a personal blend of many religions and presently am most comfortable with my family as an anglo-catholic.  However, being a christian doesn't stop me from acknowledging that practicing hindus have fewer sinus/allergy problems than we westerners do because of their cleansing rituals such as the neti pot....  my jesus would be fine with the fact that my little chinese doctor in hong kong does more good for my pain than the pharmaceutical companies do....  and it doesn't offend our priest that yoga classes are held in our church.... Our hope is that the crosses that we "carry" in the Divine Market won't offend our non christian friends and likewise that our christian friends might want to try using incense on the altar...   I could go on and on. The "social conscience" evolving in our company with clear conscience beads and the divine market is to promote the understanding, respect, and tolerance of all the diverse people inhabiting our world.  We believe that tolerance and understanding are the touchstones of and pathway to real peace in our world. That's the challenge now, how to sum it up in a mission statement.... All that being said, RocknRocks is still here with the beads and Doris is ready to be overwhelmed with orders.  In the spirit of the ponderings above and the innate power of the stones we stock, we are offering all smoky quartz (said to dissolve negativity), tourmaline (to promote understanding), obsidian (to dispel negativity), and lepidolite  (for acceptance and to assist in making necessary changes) to all for a limited time at HALF PRICE!  There's no promo code needed, your 50% savings will be automatically calculated during checkout.  One of the concerns that came through loud and clear in the survey is that you depend on us for your gemstone bead needs and just to be clear on that issue, we're not going anywhere! Important announcement - Since we are an internet based company, we are cutting costs by using cable for our telephone needs.  Our old system was frustrating for both our customers and us in that this is much simpler and less expensive.  Our new number is 931.542.2895, we're still at the same address, just a new phone number, FYI!

Thanks for your patience with my rambling and your continued support of our family, Dede

Passion Found

The quiet over the past few weeks has been decision making time about the future of our family business, what we really want to do and where we're headed.  Now that some of that is clearer in our heads, we can start sharing it here.

Beads will always be a part of our business, it's just up to you as to how large a portion of our business that it is.  We are closing out all items that we can not personally certify as Clear Conscience.  The transition to becoming "fully stocked" again will depend on how supportive our customer base is of this social consciousness. 

Alongside these changes, we are opening both in our brick and mortar storefront and a new domain online, the Divine Market.  Our goal there is to nourish the mind, body and spirit with healing natural products ranging from locally grown organic foods to herbs and oils to meditation tools etc. 

When I asked myself a few weeks ago "where's the passion", this is where the energy arose when I allowed myself to explore all of our options for the future.  As I say, the beads aren't going anywhere, we'll do whatever you want in beads, but we're going for the bigger picture.  I've always loved the quote of Ghandi "Be the change you want to see in the world".  That's what it feels like we're doing now, there's a lot more projects to go but it's gotta be about more than beads.  I've never been a "straight business person" before the past five years and am finding myself sort of whipped and worn out by chasing my tail trying to compete with people I don't want to become. 

For now, we'll simply start to share those things that are helping us to renew our minds, bodies, and spirit.  Can you believe we're going to the Y almost everyday now?  I never dreamt even my hands could be sore from yoga!   I went to my first yoga class in 25 years week before last, walked in late and the teacher put my mat front and center of course!  I didn't know how to respond when the young woman after class thanked me for not quitting!  :)  Now I've learned, I'm going the "gentle yoga" and "stretch yoga" sessions for the foreseeable future.

Under the Chuppah

Just settling back in here, home from the big wedding in Memphis.  Got to see cousins that I haven't seen in a dozen years (they grew up!), clap and yell "Mazeltov", witness the Ketubah, and as always, cry when the groom sees the bride. When I catch up a bit, swear I will upload some pics from both weddings and get back in the swing of writing.

Learn from our mistakes & INVENTORY!!!

Hi all! 

Dede and I were talking this morning about how many of you expressed an interest in all the problems we encountered with NetSuite when we moved over our website to the newer system.  So, since the website is mainly my piece of the rocknrocks pie, we figured it would be a great thing for me to share with you all on the blog.

My focus will be the things you need to look for in a good ecommerce site before you invest thousands of dollars to get the website of your dreams.  I will share our experience with you, hopefully all you small business owners out there can and will learn from our mistakes!  We will get started on this in the next few days, so be looking for my posts on the subject.

Also, Rick & Doris have been hard at work counting our inventory, as I am sure you can imagine is no small task!!  As they complete their counts, we will put them on sale!  So, in the coming weeks we will have a sale on just about everything in our inventory as soon as the counting is done!

Everyone have an amazing Memorial Day weekend!  Remember to thank a Vet for their service.  We are blessed to be in a community that is largely military, thanks to Ft Campbell and the 101st Airborne.  Thanks to all our military members & their families for their service!

   

Where's the Passion?

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about trying to work our way through exploring all our options in moving forward with our lives.  Of course, as the recurring theme of why I was apprehensive about blogging here, is that there's no way to separate work and family in our case in that we live "above the store".  Anywho, the friend asked which one of the options feels energizing and which feels like a burden, so that's what I'm pondering now.  Which of the options invokes my passion?  My belief is that is where I am going to find the energy to move forward.

Today I finally spoke briefly with an attorney and have an appointment tomorrow.  That is such a relief, it had gotten to a point in looking at options, that there are questions that only an attorney can answer.  At least by Friday afternoon this week, it won't feel like another week long groundhog day of lost time, we will have made some progress!

natalie and tommy

the wedding this weekend was wonderful.  i don't believe i've ever seen a bride and groom enjoy their own festivities as much as natalie and tommy did.  they are an amazing couple! after dating since they were fifteen, putting each other through school, and buying a house together, ten years later he still burst into tears when he saw her come down the aisle, it was so sweet! when I bring the thingie up here to this makeshift office to get the images off my phone, will show you all some pics.  cassie was a beautiful bridesmaid and caroline just loved having a girls weekend.  you would have thought we were going to disney instead of jackson tn!  congratulations you two!

my response, for better or worse

i appreciate your opinion, everyone's entitled to one, thankfully yours is in the minority (as in the only negative thus far)

however if our humanity through this crisis period offends you, i'm truly sorry, we're just surviving with one foot in front of the other right now, i can't tell you how many hundreds of people have thanked me for the honesty, apparently there's a lot more of us out there struggling right now than fox news reports

i was always taught to not judge another until i've walked in their shoes, i would challenge you to do the same, we are professional in our service, not in our lives

as a social entrepreneur, this company is "us" in good times and in bad, it's impossible to separate the two, more like a marriage than a "job"

i've done the "professional image" thing to death earlier in life and truthfully, fear of opinions like yours caused me to stay quiet when times got tough this past year

however, if i had stayed quiet at this particular point in time, we would have drowned, so i stepped out on that limb with nothing to lose

through this i've learned that most of our business is repeat precisely because we're not impersonal and corporate, there's plenty of choices out there if one doesn't care where the money goes

if our continued candor and honesty offends you, there's an unsubscribe link on each email for your convenience

sincerely,

dede

opinions anyone?

i've never done this before but here's a point of view that i needed to respond to and since she suggested i needed a blog, thought i'd just put it out here for discussion and see what the opinions are

Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 9:47 PM
To: Dede
Subject: your emails

It's really unprofessional to air your personal problems to your clientele. I don't want to hear it nor do I want to read about the supportive emails you've gotten and how much money you paid to your mortgage and who is sick in your family. You need a blog. I don't wish you anything bad, I just want to hear about your sales and your beads, not your personal life.

Susan

Heading to a Wedding

It's been a whirlwind of a day here getting ready to leave town for oldest friends daughters wedding.  Cassie is in the wedding and Caroline and I are making it a girls weekend trip, crashing on Jackie's couch like the old days, more about that later.  Made a few fun necklaces for the weekend, will pic them next week to see what you think, the stones are drawing me, especially to agates, wonder what that means?

A Day for Red

Today was the day of reckoning that I had been afraid to face, sitting down with the new bookkeeper to see where we stand, to see just how deep is this hole.  Well, all i can say here is that red is the color of the year!  It is such a clustermuck of a mess, from the transition to netsuite and back to quickbooks added to the turnover in the office throughout it all.  In light of this discovery, we'll put coral on sale for a while at 40% off - let everybody see some red can look good, as well as help us work our way out of this hole.  Thanks to everyone's response to the open letter, we were able to use the proceeds to make some progress with the banker who holds the note on our building today.  We came up with a plan where if sales continue over the next month, we'll be able to catch up on our interest for the year so far, that's so much better than it looked last week.  Thank you!