08.30.07
A Vacation in the UK
Well my wife and I just returned from a vacation the UK, we spent most of our time in the North West of England but did a spectacular day trip to Wales. We saw castles in abundance and spent lots of English pounds!
One thing we enjoyed was a large retail outlet called “Botany Bay”, we bought lots of old black & white framed photographs of my home town, Manchester, and several of the Titanic as it left Liverpool. We plan to put the pictures in our new home.
I would recommend a visit to England and Wales to anyone and would say that a visit to the castles in North Wales is a must! We spent time at Conwy castle which is a beautiful place to eat lunch and browse the local stores for Welsh souvenirs.
We came back from our vacation rested and recharged and are already planning our next trip to the UK next year!
08.17.07
Red Roof Inn & La Quinta
Well we made it to Houston and unfortunately will have to stay another night.
We checked into a Red Roof inn last night and it was OK but in a rather nasty area, there was a gentlemen’s club in the parking lot next to the hotel and the music didn’t stop until 2AM!
Needless to say, our second night in Houston is already off to a better start, we found a La Quinta that accepted our four dogs and are loving the room and location. We are eating well and working from our hotel room. The passport should be ready in the morning and we are looking forward to getting home as soon as we can.
08.12.07
H-Town!
Well it is almost time for us to head down to H-town or Houston as it is also known. We are travelling down there with our four dogs to try and get a passport ready for our UK visit.
The journey won’t be too bad (probably about 5 hrs) but because we are taking our dogs we are pretty much confined to using one hotel chain. The only really dog friendly hotel chain we could find was the “Red Roof Inn” and we have reserved our room ready for the trip.
Hopefully the dogs will enjoy a road trip, it will be our first big excursion with all four!
Wish us luck!!
08.10.07
Time to Take Stock :0)
Well our latest batch of inventory arrived yesterday and as always we eagerly tore open the large boxes to see what new products we were running with.
The first box yielded a large assortment of decorative wall hangers. The slogans are all mantras that I will be trying to adhere to such as;
“Count Your Rainbows Not Your Rainy Days”
My first task when new stock arrives is to start pricing and labelling items, closely followed by adding the products to our online Texas Gifts catalog. 
We also found a box full of stained glass wall hangers which my wife proceeded to buy on the spot! In fact we always buy things for our own home at the store, I recently bought a nice wooden picture frame for our home which I’m displaying a picture of my wife and I’s visit to Boston in.
Anyway, check out our online store for all the above mentioned products, we hope you like them!
08.09.07
Texas Longhorn Cuddly Plush Toys!
I was recently corrected by a colleague at work when I showed them a photograph of one of the cuddly toys we sell at our store.
I explained that the cuddly toy was a Texas Longhorn and they immediately protested. It appears that my English roots had blinded me from the glaringly obvious fact that I had not positioned the toys “long horns” correctly at all!
The Longhorn image is synonymous with parts of Texas and a local football team’s favorite chant is “Hook ‘Em Horns!”
The mistake I had made was that the plush toy in question has flexible / positionable horns and I had bent them to completely the wrong angle. To meet the classic symbolic version of the Longhorn they have to point out to either side of the bulls head and begin with a curve upwards before straightening out and again curving upwards at the end. (See image below!)
The way I had positioned the horns was utterly out of specification. Anyway, needless to say, I will be heading up to our store this weekend to correct the administrative error and hopefully improve our cuddly longhorn toy sales!
08.07.07
Promoting our Texas Arts, Crafts & Gifts Store!
I have recently started to venture into the very organic world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)! This concept is something I knew I had to practice even before our small business even created a website, I just never knew the key phrase “SEO” existed.
I stumbled across a site called www.iwebtool.com and found a whole community of webmasters sharing their ideas and techniques for optimizing their un-paid and paid search engine listings, methods for creating adverts, methods for using adverts to monetize a site, etc.
I must confess that I am now an SEO addict and reading the iWebTool discussion forums has become a daily ritual.
This blog was in-fact created so that I could have something to update on a daily basis that would point back to our store website. The process of updating our www.daylilycottage.com website requires the use of an FTP tool and careful thought about content and presentation etc. The blogging community provides a much more fluid atmosphere for expression which doesn’t always, and rarely does, relate directly to a companies business.
So how does a BLOG relate to SEO??
Well getting a business website listed in directories can be easy but there is always alot of competition. For example, our site is essentially an art gallery, giftshop and gift basket store all rolled into one, but there are millions of giftshops online all “paying” for great SEO and adverts. The blogging community on the other hand has many of its own directories which are relatively quick to get listed in and show up in top search engines (Google / Yahoo / MSN) fairly quickly.
I have already noticed that my blog appears in Google for some of my sites keyword phrases higher than my actual site!
The tricky part is that to really make a blog work, you have to treat it like a diary and provide a rich diversity of posts. If someone reads your blog and it is stagnated with business referrals they will leave fairly quickly!
Anyway, this has been my daily outpouring, some would say this post was a confession, but I promise to blog from the heart and hopefully people will soon start reading and commenting! (And maybe clicking on my business site <- shameless plug!)
08.06.07
The Good Samaritans!
I was driving over to see my parent in-laws new house Friday evening not paying any particular attention to a drive I have made several times before. It was just after 4pm and the traffic was not too bad yet. I turned onto a local tree lined road and sped up to the posted 45 mph, suddenly the two cars in front of me swerved and I immediately applied my brakes!
Right there in the middle of the road was a rather chubby little white dog. She was waddling rather than walking and was lucky the drivers in front were observant. Anyone adjusting their radio or talking on a phone would have hit the wandering dog.
I came to a halt and watched the little dog wander into a small subdivision ahead and to my left. As the owner of four dogs myself I know what it feels like to think that one is lost so I pulled over and tried to coax her towards my truck. Well after a short exchange of looks I somehow gained her trust and picked her up and put her in the back of my truck with the AC on extra cold. It appeared that a midday stroll had taken its toll on her and she was in dire need of a cool glass of water.
To cut a long story short I ended up taking her to a local vets office and they agreed to keep her over the weekend to allow my wife and I a chance to post some flyers and try to locate her owners.
My wife and I spent Saturday with our friends and decided to devote our Sunday to posting flyers and trying to find her real home.
Our first port of call was the tree lined street that I found her on and after posting at least six flyers on telegraph poles we saw a rather lonely looking hand written sign in the distance!
“LOST, white Bichon Frise, REWARD”
Our spirits lifted at once and I immediately called the number on the flyer.
We eventually managed to re-united the very happy owners with their dog, all they had to do was pay $44 for boarding at the vets. Needless to say we did not take any reward, I just hope someone would stop and pick up our dogs if any of them got loose.
It just goes to show, most clouds do have a silver lining and we felt extremely happy that we managed to re-unite a lost dog with her owners!
Our store has recently started stocking a range of organic soaps designed just for washing your proud pooches! They are made from all natural ingredients and are the best dog soaps we have tried.
View them here at The Day Lily Cottage.
08.03.07
Plans Are Afoot
That title was an attempt to link in with yesterdays post about foot care!
Anyway, we are planning an update to our store in Old Town Keller… Our plan is to turn one of our many rooms into a childrens book club. The large “sunroom” on the right hand side of our store gets really good natural light all day long and we will be converting it into a childrens library where parents can hold book reading meetings and host birthday parties focused on increasing childrens learning through books.
My wife and I read all the time and feel it is important to put our passion for books into work by creating somewhere that the community of Keller can use in a social context.
The room should be finished in the next couple of weeks and hopefully we will begin selling childrens books in our online store Texas Giftshop.
If you are a local Texas author of childrens books we would be delighted to stock your work. Just send us an e-mail:
Our online store has been updated recently with a Texas History section as well, currently we’ve detailed the life and works of two great Texan artists, Frederic Remington and Charles Russel. Check it out, Texas Arts History.
08.02.07
Caring for Your Feet – A Foot Conscious Guide to Texas!!!
Introduction:
Our poor feet… they are so disrespected. We put them in a confined area all day, let them get hot and sweaty and then complain when they come out hurting and worst of all, smelly. Imagine if you wore a sock over your head down to your ankles all day – how would you feel? So in the interest of being nicer to our feet, here are some tips for foot care that are helpful in the prevention of disease and injury especially if you live in hot climates such as Texas.
First of all, did you know that your feet and hands contain more sweat glands than any other part of the body? They clock in at 3000 glands per square inch – that’s alot of sweat potential!
Our feet secrete a particular acid in their sweat that can create odor in our footwear.
Do the following to minimize the potential for malodorous shoes:
1. Bathe feet daily and dry THOROUGHLY.
2. Change socks at least once a day.
3. Dust feet with non-medicated baby powder or foot powder.
4. Wear thick soft socks that are made of materials that “wick” away moisture.
5. Avoid nylon socks or plastic shoes – neither of these materials allows the foot to breathe.
6. Rotate athletic shoes so they can dry out for at least a day. If shoes have an odor after drying out for 24 hours, throw them out. Odor is natures indicator of bacteria.
7. ALWAYS wear socks with closed shoes.
Injuries & Prevention:
Gentle stretching such as slow foot circles, spreading your toes, pointing the toes and flexing the feet go a long way toward injury prevention.
A doctor should always be consulted if the following conditions apply to the feet:
1. Swelling of one leg or foot for more than 72 hours.
2. Pain associated with feet or legs increases with exercise or walking.
3. Pain when at rest or with elevation of the legs.
4. Sudden progression of foot deformity.
5. Any infection – don’t try to treat an infected ingrown toenail yourself.
6. Development of a blister or ulcer on the foot which doesn’t appear to be healing (possible sign of diabetes)
7. A unilateral flattening of the feet arch.
8. Loss of sensation in feet or legs.
Summary:
It feels good to let the feet come out and breathe by going barefoot. Always be careful when walking barefoot as punctures and cuts can happen this way. Going barefoot in the yard seems safer but then you can run into fire ants and other critters you can’t see called microbes that can enter through the skin of the feet and actually cause intestinal problems.
If you are prone to being bitten by bugs you may want to try using some all natural bug balm.
Also try to walk gently when going barefoot. Heels are rigid and many people slam them into the ground, shocking the legs and knees. Instead, while you should still make your heels touch the ground first, you should shift most of your weight forward onto the balls of your feet. The balls of the feet are flexible and will mold to the contour of the surface; they also have a wider surface area to better distribute your bodys weight. Once you get used to walking this way, it will become natural for you.
Feet aren’t gross, they’re just asking for a little more respect. So be nice to your feet, take them out for a pedicure or just say “thanks for taking me where I want to go!” with some all natural foot balm.
The Sweet Smell of Success
Our store has a large room at the back left corner which has historically contained all things scented. The room has a deep red wall paper and although containing two large windows it has a dark and heady atmosphere.
The biggest addition to this room has been a large dresser stocked with triple scented candles made by “Keepers of the Light” candle company. Their triple scented candles come in a huge variety of scents and we stock almost all of them!
Many of our employees buy the candles for their own homes and my wife and I are no exception. We basically have one of these in each room of the house and when lit they quickly fill a room with a great scent.
We have four dogs and keeping the house smelling good is a must so we generally get home from work and go around lighting them all, the good thing is they seem to last forever and they have sturdy bases so there is no risk that the dogs wagging tails can topple them over!
We’re hoping that when people buy these candles they get the same experience as we do, I know for sure that I love coming home to the smell of fresh treacle pudding or tropical coconut. I am as they say, converted to the joys of smelling!
