week two - 2025

What. A. Week. Personally, all is well with me, business and family. However, it’s been a week of heartache, nationally and even locally. I started the week very motivated to print and clean the shop and count the inventory and rearrange the retail space. In reality, I spent lots of time on press and doom scrolling. The LA fires filled my local media and my heart broke again and again. So much destruction and devastation.

What I did accomplish this week:

• I printed these cuties - 
valentine candy cigarettes
red hot valentine
sweetheart candies valentine  
valentine sprinkles
marriage high life
•Worked on updating our wholesale catalog for a new potential customer 
•Finished listening to the last book of The Neapolitan Novels - The Story of the Lost Child  on Libby
•Completed my first 9 days of the Insight Timer cource Doorways to Being: Healing Practices for Everyday Life from Andy Hobson and I love it, he's one of my favorite meditation instructors
•
I’ve been enjoying this delicious and comforting hot tea

One story that really hit home was of Fugu Fugu Press. While I’ve never met Shino and Ken, I’ve been an admirer of their work for years. If you want to read their story, Emily McDowell wrote a post that explains it all.

Another sad bit of news and loss for the Chicago Small Business Community was the passing of Todd Mack.  He was the founder of Foursided one of the most amazing gift shops in Chicago. I wanted to share my personal story with Todd so you can get an idea of the human he was and what he meant to me and so many other makers. You can read that story here.