Last week, my sister and I traveled to New York City for a business trip.
Last week, my sister and I traveled to New York City for a business trip. Business travel is different from pleasure travel. Pleasure travel has a certain speed to it, usually relaxed. However, when we travel to New York, it is hard to tell the difference because we love the city so much. We keep a rapid and packed schedule, but we find time to enjoy the tiny, minute and forgotten pieces of the Big Apple while taking in all the big, loud and spectacular.
Hybrid cabs have changed the city.
When I got home, I was sent a survey from a hotel chain that my husband and I use and for which we collect points. One of the questions was something along the lines of, “How often do you stay overnight for business and how much for pleasure?”
Another great building facade in the middle of a block.
I was stymied only in that I count New York as both – in the same trip! – and there was no check box for that.
My favorite neon on the trip, as seen in the mirror.
Enjoy these photos. Of course we had fun, but we’ve been mixing business with pleasure for so long it’s a blurry mess in our heads.
This continues to be a sad and tragic week in America.
I have been struggling with maintaining my inner happiness…
This continues to be a sad and tragic week in America.
I have been struggling with maintaining my inner happiness. Faced with all these events, how do I keep talking about free scarves, tailgate parties and art?
My friend Scotty Johnson, a marathon runner and remarkable woman, posted an image that said, “We will run and we will remember!”. This was a gift. I am not a runner in the traditional sense. But, I am a runner in the broader sense. I have had my foundation shaken many times and I have somehow taken a step and then another and then another…until I learned to run again.
Today I will work to just take that first step…
And, with my sister’s hand in mine, I pledge that every day at STUFF we will run. We will keep offering a place built on “happy”. A place where everyone is welcome to soak up joy, art and inspiration.
For the last 14 years, I have volunteered on an outreach, education and fundraising project for AIDS Walk Kansas City. And for the past 10 years, STUFF has been a corporate sponsor along with amazing small companies and businesses in Kansas City of the Mosaic Project.
For the last 14 years, I have volunteered on an outreach, education and fundraising project for AIDS Walk Kansas City. And for the past 10 years, STUFF has been a corporate sponsor along with amazing small companies and businesses in Kansas City of the Mosaic Project.
Tiles at the First Friday event this year. April 5th was full of art!
This project is simple. High school students in school districts around Kansas City paint six-by-six inch ceramic tiles in the theme “A World Without AIDS” with glazes in an eleven-color palette. We ask that they watch a short video about the AIDS epidemic that ends with a step-by-step on how to paint a tile. Then, we hope their creativity will fly and that their small artwork will show us a world without AIDS.
The simplicity continues. The tiles are fired, cataloged and finally placed on display en mass during one of the busiest weekends of April, First Friday in Kansas City’s Crossroads District. Thousands of people converge upon this remarkable area of town to live, breath and consume art in its many forms.
This year’s volunteer army!
The simplicity ends in that it takes many, many hours of volunteer time to schlep these tiles all over town, coordinate delivery and retrieval with amazingly generous art teachers, number them, clear coat them, keypunch all the data, manage the two events – public and private – and, finally, inventory and pack it all up for next year.
Which is what I did yesterday with four members of our stunning committee. The generosity of the small businesses – like STUFF – that donate discounted or free tiles, glazes, bowls, labels, artwork, printing, etc., is not wasted. From year to year, if all the supplies are not consumed from the year before, we pack it up and store it for the next go round.
All Mosaic supplies packed up and inventoried. Ready for 2014.
I am so very proud of what we do. We hope young people will spend a few minutes thinking about their fragile health and the world around them and then show us – through art – what their world would be like without AIDS. Many take the time to tell us, in words, and we make sure this story travels with the tile to its collector through the label we adhere to its back. We do this with heavily discounted – but mostly free – supplies and volunteer labor. Then we sell these tiles and raise money for the 5,700 women, children and men living with HIV/AIDS in Kansas City.
It doesn’t get any better than that.
My dream for a world without AIDS is simple. That things like the Mosaic Project cease to be. That our energies will be placed differently because we have beaten this epidemic into the earth.
Until then, I will live in the art, creativity and community this project has enriched my life with. I am one of the lucky ones. It’s that simple.
p.s. The 2013 Mosaic tiles can be seen for the last time as a group (reduced in number due to sales at the April 5th event) at the 25th Annual AIDS Walk. April 27th in Theis Park. Right in front of The Nelson. Come and see them and take a great piece of art home to remind you what a glorious place a world without AIDS would be. Art lives!
Co-owning a family business is a remarkable adventure. My life intertwined with my family on a daily basis. It works for me. It is one of most enjoyable aspects of my career.
This week my daughter is out of school two days for parent/teacher conferences. We talked about her options for these two days, because Mom taking off two days was not an option. She picked work one day and Nana’s house for the second day.
I loved having her with me. She begged to do “real work” with our team. And, our team was very kind to include her in their tasks.
It is difficult to describe how I feel when I watch her working at the store. The word pride seems limited. Joy, love, happiness, lucky, blessed…and so very much more.
It’s the time of year when people ask, “Do you leave the store?” We do. We go home at night, and we come back the next day. However, leaving for lunch is hard after Thanksgiving.
It’s the time of year when people ask, “Do you leave the store?” We do. We go home at night, and we come back the next day. However, leaving for lunch is hard after Thanksgiving. Today I snuck away and had lunch with my sister, my Dad, my niece and my stepmom after they had been to see Santa. This may be the last day we can do this until January, and that’s OK. We love seeing our customers over their lunch breaks during the holidays. That’s when all the sneaky purchases take place.
Classic Cookie is one of our favorite places for chicken salad. And cookies. But mostly chicken salad. Well, Casey had a roast beef sandwich today, but I think it is because their horseradish sauce and bread are so amazing. Ask her. I really don’t know.
Leslia Stockard owns this great small business, and just this Sunday – yesterday – she was in STUFF when we were making plans for today’s lunch. Casey asked what the soups were going to be on Monday. Leslie admitted that she didn’t know – but what sounded good? Casey said that she didn’t like beans and left it at that.
Casey & LeslieVickie, the wicked stepmom, and my niece.My Dad and my sister, Casey.
The soups today were Mushroom Potato and Beef Barley. Not a bean in sight. You can’t tell me small business doesn’t listen to their customers.
They start by just sleeping in their car carriers. Under the desk. Behind the counter. In the office. They come to work and they do little.
They start by just sleeping in their car carriers. Under the desk. Behind the counter. In the office. They come to work and they do little.
Then, they play. They play with their own toys, they play with the office supplies, and maybe, just maybe, they play shop with us. They nap, they nosh.
Then, around five years old, they want something “real” to do. Labeling, stickering, sorting. Doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s what we’re doing. It’s for short periods of time so that the playing can continue.
At seven, they want a timesheet. It not about the money – there are child labor laws! – it’s about being like the other employees and doing “real work”. Not like the stuff they did at five. This time the labeling needs to be on product, the stickering needs to be on real file folders, and the sorting becomes filing into the file cabinets. Real numbers, Labor Law Compliance Center labor posters, the full alphabet, and goals.
This week my niece filled out a timesheet that brought tears to me eyes. They grow up too fast. But it was the little parts of this one that got me. Her nickname, my nickname, the day of the week, and the fact that she got it approved by her mother. Their childhood goes by so fast, and I can’t speak for my sister but having the children at work with you alleviates huge piles of mother guilt when you feel pulled in multiple directions. It’s not all bad and more than a little bit of fun. You laugh more, you walk up the street for ice cream and popcorn, and you remember – and feel deeply – what a family business really is.
The law be damned. They just want to be like their mothers.
In the noisy jumble of a handcraft market stands a man we can count on to take our order, make us smile, and send us on our way. One day a few weeks ago, that same man made me cry.
In the noisy jumble of a handcraft market stands a man we can count on to take our order, make us smile, and send us on our way. One day a few weeks ago, that same man made me cry. His name is Mathias.
Casey, Sloane & Susan, Wings of Hope 2005
A larger-than-usual pile of boxes was delivered that day, and that alone could have made me weep. In the pile was a smaller box. Smaller than the others. It was the second box I ripped into so that I could feel a sense of completion by getting it dealt with. However, it was the magic in the box that brought productivity to a standstill. It held a pile of lovely hand crafted pewter art pieces, a note in an envelope, and an invoice outlining that the art was a gift. Many gifts to be shared with our customers. The note was opened first, and the waterworks began.
Casey, Susan & Sloane, Wings of Hope 2006
One year – not so far back – we got to talking to Mathias about our Wings of Hope event when we saw him in New York. He is a great listener, and, when we were done telling him about the change we make with our holiday open house, he told us he wanted to give us special pocket tokens to give to our customers during the event. Mathias doesn’t talk much; hearing what people say is his strength.
Casey & Sloane, Wings of Hope 2008
Mathias wrote the note that made me cry. He had a hand in the invoice adjustment, and he probably packed the box himself. But what blew me away – what has never happened before in the 16 years of our business – is the $100 check he included from his company. No company we represent has ever sent a donation to our yearly fundraiser. Ever. When I got Casey on the phone to tell her about the heaping pile of generosity we had received, she had to pull her car over because driving and crying is bad.
Casey & Sloane, Wings of Hope 2009
Together – here at STUFF, in a studio in Rhode Island, and in a research lab at the KU Cancer Center – change is in our hands. That goodness is what made me cry.
Sloane with Einstein & Casey with Emma, Wings of Hope 2010
Join us on November 10th and 11th when our holiday open house, Wings of Hope, will magically fly again.
Below you will find evidence that I have an amazingly smart, witty and loving family. It is also evidence that they are crazy.
Below you will find evidence that I have an amazingly smart and witty family. It is also evidence that they are crazy. Warning: You may not want to be drinking hot coffee when you get to the end.
Cast of Characters:
Cathryn Simmons – my mother – who co-owns a local soap company.
Sloane Simmons – my sister – and co-owner of STUFF (with me).
Lori Buntin – artist at STUFF and co-owner of the soap company.
Harl Van Deursen – my brother in-law – Sloane’s husband and our tech guru at STUFF.
Dakota Van Deursen – my nephew – Sloane’s and Harl’s son.
My sister Casey and I spent some time this morning at work writing the fine print for an upcoming giveaway. We tried to write it using as few words as possible, but it is never few enough for me.
My sister Casey and I spent some time this morning at work writing the fine print for an upcoming giveaway. We tried to write it using as few words as possible, but it is never few enough for me. “Lawyer speak” steps in and before you know it, you’ve written 100 words to give one great thing away.
In my previous post, I shared a few signs that made me happy or smile. These signs – spotted after lunch today – just cracked me up. I guess whoever placed them there thought six signs could tell the story so much better than just one concise one.
On March 10th we had the time of our lives. Again. For the 10th year in a row.
On March 10th we had the time of our lives.
Again.
For the 10th year in a row.
The Brookside St. Patrick’s Warm-Up Parade is a Kansas City tradition that is equal in its grandness to the main parade held downtown every March 17th. Over 125 entries were in this year’s parade, and the crowds on every block were huge. The weather was amazing, and small business was shining throughout the parade. Another example of the small businesses in and around Brookside giving it their all…strutting their stuff and making magic for children and families.
One of our greatest fears as a small business in a global economy is that events like this parade will cease to exist if small business falters. Who will walk in parades showing off a 1964 Ford F100 pickup? Who will hand out over 100 pounds of candy? Who will hoot and holler and respond to every “shout out” from the crowd?
We saw the most amazing floats this year – dogs in wagons, rainbows over pots of gold, giant lawnmowers and shopping carts. A motorized potato. People on stilts. The list is endless and wonderful. Target didn’t have a float, Walmart didn’t have a float. PetSmart didn’t have a float. But Noah’s Ark did. And The Roasterie, and Cosentino’s.
The St. Pat’s Parade in Brookside was another reminder for us of why we work so hard to keep the neighborhood cultures alive. Because we love what we do, and we don’t want small parades in great neighborhoods to go away.
Please continue to shop with small businesses. You make pots of gold appear in all the right places and for all the right reasons.
