Ad Nauseum

Well, in exciting news, we learned today that The Kroenke Group will be finished with their build-out obligations of our new space on August 6th. They agreed to build the space out to white box status…which is just a fancy term for building the space out to a shell and readying it for our construction crew. And by the terms of our lease, we have 150 days to finish our portion before our rental obligation (read: big rent payment) begins. Because Thanksgiving always lives in the frontal cortex of my brain, I immediately Googled “WHAT DATE IS 150 DAYS FROM AUGUST 6, 2021?”. And whew - it’s January 3, 2022. And now I have a conundrum because I don’t want to open close to Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I sure don’t want to open a second store in my VERY LEAST FAVORITE MONTH OF THE ENTIRE YEAR.

So I guess the moral of the story is let’s just all hope that Beacon Street Construction is able to move along quickly and that we aren’t overly delayed by supply issues. And that our equipment shows up. And that we can find enough staff to work in our beautiful new store. And that the anxiety of if all doesn’t break my soul somewhere in the 150 day window. We shall see. (Honestly, I should have written an anxiety clause into the lease relieving us of our obligations to perform under the lease terms if, in fact, my anxiety does kill me.)

My daughter and I are flying out of Columbia early tomorrow morning for Atlanta Gift Mart, leaving Jeanne and Jason in charge. Jason is keenly interested in how buying at market works because he is a finance person at his core. However, he can only tolerate Hobby Lobby for 10 minutes or less before defecting to Best Buy, thus he would never survive the 10 hour shopping days we have planned over the next several days. And Jeanne has visited market once, but considered the whole experience to be completely overwhelming and not enjoyable…so leaving her behind was not a second thought. Our main goal is to find merchandising pieces for the new store, plus fall and Christmas items. And who knows what else. I’m just thankful I’ve raised a child who meets a day of marathon shopping with gusto and will discuss the merits of one tea towel over the other with me ad nauseum.