Traveling Kates

Fast forward a couple years; the boutique is fabulous and constantly evolving to include new artisans, the tea party space is booked nearly every weekend, Holly Goes Lightly is more popular than any person on Main Street and then…hubby said he was ready to retire. What did that mean? Retire into our little life on Main Street or take on a whole new adventure? After talking about our options and love for living tiny, I made the craziest of suggestions…what if we sold it all, bought a travel trailer, and traveled the country? Mind you, I’ve never camped and thought moving into our 500sq ft was tiny but was now suggesting to go uber tiny and travel around despite not ever actually being in a travel trailer before. Again…I found myself letting my fingers do the walking over my laptop keys to Craigslist; searching for a new adventure…one that had never been uttered or even thought of before. Things happened quickly after that; I mentioned the idea to a few people and just like t...

Anyone else would be happy; ecstatic even, at the idea of having a boutique and living in the flat above it…adding at tea party space would have been icing on an already moist, and exploding with flavor, cake. BUT…I wanted just a little bit more. Her name was Holly; I dreamed of her while designing an idea for a craft fair I had coming up. My plan was to close the boutique early and take it on the road to participate in this event just one town over, stepping out and getting a bit of exposure for my Simply Lyla’s boutique. (Lylas by the way is not a family member but means Love Ya Like a Sister…something I had started at our church in Michigan and kinda something I loved when moving to Oklahoma too) I decided to look on Craigslist one night for a mobile boutique option; hubby was open to the idea when I suggested it, so I had to look quickly…while he was still in the mood…kinda like a wife may bring up the idea of another baby BUT absolutely nothing like that at the same...

We loved downtown Main Street living, but we already knew that we would. Our bedroom was literally at the front of our building and at the same level as the street light outside of our boutique but with new blinds and room darkening curtain panels, we got along just fine. We moved into our flat in August; those not from Oklahoma would think that was a perfect time to move, but it WAS Oklahoma and it was not the most ideal time to move into just 500sq feet or to begin living tiny in a 100year old building with far less amenities than we had the month before. It was 100 something degrees outside and the window air conditioner in the bedroom was working overtime; our building had heating and air but through the boutique downstairs with just a few floor vents upstairs that hadn’t been used in a while, and now…quite frankly, probably full of the plaster dust we had created EVERYWHERE in the last month alone, by knocking it all off to expose the brick walls. Note to self: Next ti...

When I was younger and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said that I wanted to be a teacher. I loved learning; addicted it to it really… but soon realized that I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. Sure, I loved kids and I loved learning but I didn’t love trying to teach someone else how to do something. I even set up a corner of our family room to be a mini sewing studio for my three girls one Christmas; getting them a sewing machine and all the tools needed to begin creating. They were excited. I was excited, until it came time to teach them how to create on their own. I’m not sure if they even really had the interest at the time (although I think two of the three wish I would have taken more time then, since they want to know now) and every time I tried to teach them something…I found myself scooting them out of the chair and just doing it myself. Mom fail. Teach a man to fish (sew) and they’ll fish for a lifetime? Um… nope. I’ll just do the fishing myself....