The STUFF Sisters - Celebrations

Let Freedom Ring

Independence Day – The 4th of July – always makes us think of parades. To us they are part of the American fiber, parades followed by family picnics and fireworks after dark. It is a day to celebrate our freedom and democracy. We wish you a happy Independence Day. Let freedom ring!

Brookside doesn’t have a parade on July 4th. We enjoy our parade in early spring near St. Patty’s day. And every day in Brookside we enjoy the fellowship of this genuine classic American neighborhood. Our store is always filled with people that take the extra steps it takes to choose local, American-made goods. We share these treasured blocks in Kansas City with other outstanding local businesses. This neighborhood is powered by people.

Once a year, when we take our neighborhood pride to the streets, we march with our friends, families and loyal customers. We collectively celebrate the past and present authenticity of Brookside. This small friendly neighborhood where kids and families still stroll down the sidewalks with ice cream cones…it is home to us all and it so very American.

We look forward to sitting on the sidelines of other parades this July 4th and we look forward to next spring when we take to streets once again to honor our traditions. We wish you a happy Independence Day.

Let freedom ring!

One Night Stand

I had a wonderful Saturday night. Friends everywhere, drinks easily at hand, conversation that stimulated, outfits and costumes befitting a ‘black & white masquerade’, kisses, stolen glances, and little nibbles of food too delicious for plates. I am lucky. I know it.

I had a wonderful Saturday night. So many elements leading into it: warm weather, freshly cleaned car, one-day-old pedicure, great work day behind me.

Saturday night held a charity fundraiser in her grasp for me. A stunning and mysterious location would hold a little over 1,000 people who wanted to do good while having fun. Many friends had served on the planning committee and gave it everything they had. Truly, no detail was missed.

This photo was sent to me the day after the event. Neighbors and friends were everywhere.

My husband was unable to join me due to a client project, and I looked no further than a girlfriend who has shared bits and pieces of her life with me while I have done the same. We now have a great foundation for a friendship that keeps growing after ten years. She delights me and is a great date.

Having married my high school sweetheart, I have never had the learning curve of a one-night-stand. Whatever that curve holds for others – and I’m sure it varies – I just want to go back to Saturday night. One more time. Friends everywhere, drinks easily at hand, conversation that stimulated, outfits and costumes befitting a “black & white masquerade”, kisses, stolen glances, and little nibbles of food too delicious for plates.

I am lucky. I know it. But not luckier than the men and women served by the Kansas City CARE Clinic who will be served with the dignity and respect we all deserve when pledging allegiance to good health and well-being.

These are two things I felt deeply on Saturday when my world was spinning gloriously. I was healthy and well.

p.s. If you want to see more photos of BLOOM, check them out on Facebook here.

You Are Our Gift at the Holidays

Our whole community came together at our fundraiser – Wings of Hope. You are our gift at the holidays. Never forget that.

When asked if she wanted gift wrap, our friend Mary Anne reached across the counter and held onto Sloane’s arm and said, “You know, my gift is sitting right outside.”

And she was.

This past weekend we had yet another celebration of the power of the human spirit over cancer. We drank punch, we munched cookies, we held customers while they cried, we emptied candy bowls of their sweetness, we laughed, and our customers shopped with smiles on their faces. It was a glorious way to start the holiday season.

Mary Anne’s daughter is our friend Susan Miller. She was here the entire weekend selling T-shirts and telling of her continued victory over cancer. Casey was with her in the sunshine and shade as they raised money from donated T-shirts. A longtime friend of STUFF, John, who has had cancer visit his family one too many times, brought us custom shirts from his business to sell. All monies for charity.

Our whole community came together at our fundraiser – Wings of Hope. We are dedicated to helping find a cure for cancer through research. The KU Cancer Center is doing heaps of that – alone and in collaboration. The fund that Susan’s family started years ago while she was suffering and triumphing is still rockin’ the research.

To our parents, who have both battled cancer, to Susan, to John, to Mary Anne, and to all of you who believe in our dream business: we thank you for believing with us that together we will find a cure for cancer.

You are our gift at the holidays. Never forget that.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I married well. Sure, I helped pay for the Big 10 education …

I married well. Sure, I helped pay for the Big 10 education, but it was my husband who repaired the lamp.

Look at her shine.

.p.s. She never left the kitchen table, where she is seen here. She spent the weekend being poked and prodded, but she came through like a champ. If you are wondering what in the world I am talking about, click here.

Eight Year Olds Love to Party

She stood there holding the plastic-encased sheet cake in tiny hands. Her eyes were huge as I opened the door, and she looked up at me with bright blue eyes and said, “Lala, this is a bar!”

She stood there holding the plastic-encased sheet cake in tiny hands. Her eyes were huge as I opened the door, and she looked up at me with bright blue eyes and said, “Lala, this is a bar!” as she confidently crossed the threshold into what she had been told would be a restaurant. “I’ve never been to a bar,” were her next words – spoken quietly and more to herself than to me.

She continued her comments as we walked toward the room dedicated to our party and got settled. She had been with me since I picked her up from school 90 minutes earlier, and she was already running the show. I was delighted to have been delivered of a leader – at a grade school! – so late in the day. I needed the help, and her excitement was contagious.

“Is this our place?”

“Is it a bar or a restaurant?”

“This is really nice. Look at the pillows.”

“Should we put the cake and cards here?”

“Will they light the candles on all the tables?”

“This whole room is for Uncle Harl?”

“Can I help hand out the favors?”

Last week was a week like no other in recent history. My work life was overfull, my time with my son was at an all-time low due to his schedule and mine, every evening had harbored an event, and the whole week was to culminate in a celebration of my husband’s fifty years on Earth.

I clearly needed the help of someone younger and full of energy. I found her waiting for me in the carpool line already in her party dress and shiny sandals. We whisked off to the grocery store for the cake I had never thought to order, having prayed since noon that extra cakes could be found at my grocer. Plates and forks would be needed as well, and who better than an enthusiastic niece to make these decisions? She got a little tripped up on the math of how many sets of plates we would need to reach 50 if they came in sets of eight. “It would be easier with paper and a pencil. Just give me a minute.” As she thought the multiplication and division through, she found sets of 10 plates, and that made the decision so swift.

Special “number” candles were chosen, chocolate or white cake was debated, icing patterns were deliberated, and we were in the car headed to the restaurant within 20 minutes.

However, it was her decision on how to get her uncle’s name on the cake that makes me smile even now. It was found in the cracker aisle: Scrabble Cheez-its.

Always perfect with chocolate cake.

p.s. Bistro 303 is a restaurant and a bar. It is one of my favorite places in town, even after Derrick gave my niece a butcher knife when she went in search of something to cut the cake with. Well, a butcher knife and a Bic lighter for the big 5 and 0. She truly is a Girl Scout – no cuts and no burns!