Life Is An Adventure

Meet Linda Kick one of my customers from down the Keys. I met her via phone when she placed her first order with me. I love meeting new people and am always intrigued on where they live and how they got there. Someone living in the Keys sounded so wonderful and I asked how long she lived there etc. Well I loved her story so much I asked if she would write it down so I could put it on my blog. Here's her story in her words.

After 25 years in San Diego, CA. (which by the way is an amazing place and so beautiful) I decided to shake things up a bit. I tell people everyday to go for their dreams, take risks, and live life to the fullest. Upon reflection I discovered I was pretty complacent and so I decided, on a whim, to move to the other coast. Remember, the hardest part of any action is making the decision. Once the decision is made, then you just put one foot in front of the other and take action! So in a period of 4 weeks, I sold or gave away most everything I had.

If it didn't fit in my convertible mustang, it didn't travel with me. That in itself was a major task. Talk about releasing the past! lol. I had 25 years of stuff to go through. It took 4.5 days to drive across the country to the East Coast. I landed in the Florida Keys December 19th, called for an apartment, moved in. It was an amazing feeling to have reached my goal and to know I was beginning a new adventure.

At first I played at being retired or what ever you want to call it...I wasn't working! lol. Lots of sightseeing and getting to know my neighborhood. Then I realized I wasn't growing in any direction so I answered a small ad in the local paper and began working in an art gallery. What fun. Now I am stimulated by beautiful things all day long inside and out. It was not long (about 2 months) when I decided to open my own shop. A 9x12 storage space in the Rain Barrel at Islamorada, Fl. I had a new dream and a new project and I was giving birth to a new journey once again. It seems like once I made the first decision to change my life, the rest began to fall into place. It was so exciting.

Now, with my new shop, Tropical Zen, open only two months, I had an opportunity to grow by taking on a much larger space. Square footage was about 4 times bigger! Yikes. That was scary Would I be able to make the additional rent? Would I be able to afford the additional inventory needed to fill the space? Would I be successful? Let me tell you....On the other side of FEAR is everything I could ever want. If you remember that one thought, you will be brave enough to step through that FEAR and accept all the greatness that is yours. It was my dream, I made the decision to make it real. How would I do it all? That was not a concern, I knew from experience that it would all come together in its own time. And it did!

I started out with an order from First In Line Soaps. Then was able to add aroma therapy soy candles. Inspirational signs followed along with Chi Energy bells and positively green greeting cards. I've recently added some easy fit clothing that flows nicely with the Keys Island life. The store continues to grow along with my income. A dream come true for me.

Now, let me explain a bit about myself. I am not a young entrepreneur. I am now 58 years old, a mother to a grown woman, and a grandmother to a 6th grader. I have been divorced and struggling on my own for some years now. Everyone, and I mean everyone I knew thought I was absolutely crazy to uproot myself from family and friends. My new friends here in Florida couldn't believe I would open a shop during these hard times, especially when they knew I was dumpster diving for old furniture pieces others didn't want just to furnish my apartment! I just want to tell you, it is never too late to make a decision to move forward in your life. Until the day you stop breathing, you have the ability to make wonderful things happen. Just make the decision and take action. Believe in yourself and know you have unlimited potential.

$22 A Loaf Soaps

Jumble Bubble loafs came about due to overage of soap when we make our regular line of soaps. We started them out as a free loaf for the purchase of 5 loafs. Why did we do that? Well to tell the truth with the economy scare and retail stores struggling we thought that this was a good marketing idea to hopefully get more customers to our site, try our products etc and help the retail stores. The customer didn't get to see what we were giving away free till they opened their order. So now in hind-site I can see that there had to be a bit of trust on the customers part to know that we would send off something that looked good, smelled good and would of course sell for them. So what I thought was a good idea really had some flaws. So we shelved that idea for the above reasons which really was that it wasn't doing what we wanted it to do.

So then like all ideas another one came to mind. The customers didn't like the idea that they couldn't see what they were getting, which now makes perfect sense. So I decided to offer our Jumble Bubble soaps again for a price $22.00 which is considerably less than our regular line of soap but this time I'll show them what they are getting. The one pictured here is a Pumpkin Crunch loaf that smells soo good. It's also very pretty looking mixing the colors of chocolate brown with a pearlized orange. As you cut into the loaf no two slices will look the same. There are only 3 loafs of Pumpkin Crunch available and when they are gone they are gone. You can see this loaf and the others we have available here

It's been about two weeks since we put the loafs on our site and with little or no fanfare it's working. So for me when an idea is working I start thinking about how I can enhance it even more.

So in the next week we will slowly be adding new swirl designs at $22. a loaf in the following fragrances.

• Green Tea
• Pearberry
• Sugar Blossom
• Think Green
• Sweet Grass
• Jasmine
• Chamomile