One Day at a Time

It was an absolutely huge market day and I wish I had of grabbed some photo's, but honestly it was just too busy!

It started at 5:30am with a toddler who decided it was time to get up and sang "mummy mummy mummy" for about 1/2 an hour before I finally dragged my tired ass out of bed.

After that it was go, go, go setting up my market stall and opening the shop for the annual Traders Market Day in Albury. Because we're a twin city with Albury on the NSW side and Wodonga on the VIC side, half the population got the day off with VIC Labour Day and they all came over for a family fun day at QEII Square.

All I can say is it was hugely busy, although I would have liked to be busier. I did better than this time last year but not as good as two years ago. Considering I now have new kid's clothing and shoes in the shop whereas last year there was only recycled kids clothing, I expected a much bigger days trade. But I guess with all the flooding and economy worries, a lot of people weren't spending.

Hubby picked up Emily who hardly slept today and was really grumpy so I decided we needed fish and chips for dinner as I just couldn't deal with sore feet, a grumpy toddler, a frustrated hubby and cooking tonight. But now I feel sooooo guilty that I ate all those chips. It's always when your busy and tired that you give in and go for the easy take away option. To make matters worse I'm sitting here watching The Biggest Looser and all the ads in between are weight loss program ads like Lite 'n' Easy and Weight Watchers!

Tomorrow morning I have to meet with the creative team from Aus Stereo to create my new radio ad. I've been trying to think of something creative and punchy that really gets the message about the shop across to my customers. I'm changing everything about the shop except the name and I'm trying hard to pick up those customers that never came in before because they only bought new and up-market brands. It's really hard changing the reputation of an existing business. When your a new business you have no reputation and so people naturally come in to see the new kid on the block. But when your an existing business and you already have a particular reputation, it is that much harder to convince people to come in and see what's new.

I think this week is going to be a "one day at a time" week. I literally have something major on every day and no time for rest. Here's hoping next week is a little less stressful!

The reason for everything I do......

Planes, Trains and Kids In Style

Friday morning I flew to Sydney for the Kids In Style expo. If you've never heard of it, imagine all the new and existing fashion labels, accessories, toys and loads more for kids under one roof. Retailers and industry folk go to look at what's coming up, find new and interesting products for their shops, pick up samples and order for next season.

So I thought I'd share a few pics of the trade fair so you can get an insiders view to the industry:

The entrance to Kids In Style

Skeanie and Uh-Oh! in the left corner had some amazing new styles

The board with the list of exhibitors.....totally mind boggling!

How cute are these dinasour badges for boys!

Colored jeans have made a come-back and these are sized 00. So cute!

I saw so many great products and kids clothing ranges and met some wonderful and talented designers. I've spent the last 24 hours going through the massive bag of price lists, catalogues and samples I bought home and I have to admit this has got to be the most fun part of my job. The hard part will be not buying everything and making sure what I do get fills a gap and compliments the rest of the shop.

I spent quite a lot of time talking to Natasha who owns Skeanie and Uh-Oh! It seems we have quite a bit in common having both previously worked in recruitment and both moving from Sydney to the country. We also both decided to start our own businesses once we had our first child and Natasha has done a brilliant job with hers. She's definitely someone I admire.

Anyway, best get Miss E's bag ready for her first day at the new daycare centre tomorrow. It's looking to be a huge day of pricing, hanging and new window display at the shop as well as trying to ensure Miss E transitions well to the new center. But this is the life of a Mum running her own business........

The Follow Up

Well I wish I could say today went well but I was left feeling so frustrated. You see having your own business and raising a child comes at a price. Had I had the choice I would have pulled Miss E out of daycare today but I can't just close the shop or I loose customers and I'm still trying to build my business. My husband works in health care and he was flat out all day, but managed to pick her up a bit earlier than usual.

At least I can be happy that her two usual carers were back today and she seemed to be happy when we picked up and there were no further scratches or incidents.

What I was so frustrated at was the Director of the centre calling me to explain what happened. She said she had conflicting stories from the casuals and permanent staff that were on yesterday, that it appears there were two separate incidents resulting in the injuries and that the casual looking after Miss E couldn't write well enough to fill out an incident report form on her own so she was waiting to fill it out with one of the permanent staff.

Infuriating! I lost it. And I have to say I think I did well to not swear once.

I told her that the center was her responsibility and the quality of care given at the centre fell directly on her shoulders. It was her job to ensure policies and procedures are being followed, to hire qualified staff and make sure carer to child ratios are adhered to. I told her that after five separate incidents where procedures weren't followed, ratio's weren't adhered to and my child was injured in all of these, she was clearly not doing her job properly. She muttered something about continuing her investigation and hung up.

I rang DOCS and waited on hold for 45 minutes before hanging up because I had customers. No wonder so many child abuse cases don't get reported.

I called the Head Office of the center in Sydney and was put on hold before getting a recorded message asking me to leave my name, number and center I was calling about and they would call me back.

I called my hubby who said he would go get her and see if he can take her to work for a while tomorrow and do some work from home so she didn't have to go back.

Tomorrow I go to Sydney for my first ever kids fashion trade show. I've been looking forward to it since halfway through last year. I'm so frustrated with Miss E's childcare that instead of thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow I became consumed with the childcare issue.

How hubby makes sure our baby is being well looked after........

This is what I know. Tomorrow she'll be fine because she'll either be with her Daddy or with her usual carer and the Director is probably shitting (oops) her pants by now so they won't want to make another error like Wednesday. Next week she does orientation at her new daycare and I hope she'll love it there.

Tomorrow I'm off to Sydney and I've booked an apartment in the city with a spa and I intend to make good use of the relaxation and good nights sleep I'll get.

Tonight I better get my butt in bed..........

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!!

Today was so much fun! This is the part of my job I love.......getting new season stock.

This morning I thought it was going to be another boring day of bookwork and then the delivery guy came with four massive boxes from WALNUT Melbourne. Whoop! Now I have an excuse to procrastinate on the bookwork.

I had honestly forgotten what I ordered so it was like opening Christmas presents today. Gorgeous fuchsia pink Mary Jane's, classic french navy Cruise shoes, little chocolate boots and warm winter tights. I was having a serious problem because all I wanted to do was put them on the shelves immediately.

Halfway through the day I gave in to temptation and put the Mary Jane's and Cruise shoes on the shelf and website. By 2:30pm I was showing a regular customer the ballet flats that aren't due to go out for another month. I'm really bad at the surprise thing!

I have a huge love of beautiful shoes and when I find a label I love, I tend to buy it in excess. Children's shoes can be so cute, but they can also be so expensive. When I discovered WALNUT Melbourne I was so pleasantly surprised that they were not just very stylish and functional but also very affordable.

Miss E was recently out at our local park in her new Chilli Red WALNUT Mary Janes and what's the first thing she did? Jump in a brown muddy puddle! "Noooooo!" I screamed as I ran accross the playground. When we got home I popped them in the washing machine on wool cycle with a bit of wool wash and they came up good as new. See, stylish but functional.

Anyway, I managed to get all the stock into the computer and put away in storage until their time to go out (except for the Mary Jane and Cruise shoes of course) and now all I can think about is how I'm going to display them.

I think I'll leave that for another day........