Written by : Julie Cove
Are you excited about this new year? Do you have aspirations to try something new in your world? – a new hobby, a new direction for your health, or perhaps you are thinking of changing careers? I believe that change is a good thing and I approach it with positive energy. Accepting change and moving forward when it might even feel difficult means that we are growing and opening ourselves up for opportunity. I love this quote “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” by Benjamin Franklin. Change is inevitable and if we are open to change we will gain the best results. You are probably wondering what’s all this talk about change- well, a new year often provokes this but so does the journey of our lives.
Did you see that movie or read the book “Julie and Julia“? Talk about a change for Julia when she was finally published. Here’s the link for the trailer if you missed it- movie trailer. During her life from her mid forties to her last day on this planet she was known as thee Julia Childs, gourmet cook. And what was she prior? Not a household name that’s for sure. She became famous in the 2nd half of her life. How inspiring is that? When I think of many of us women all I can wonder is what fantastic things might we do in the next forty + years? What contributions or differences might we be a part of?
Can I share with you what I hope to accomplish this year? It’s still a secret so shhhhhh! You are the first to know since you are a valued reader of our blog. But you have to promise me that you will accept this change as positive and embrace the change, okay? Promise? Alright, here we go.
You’ve probably heard me talk about my health and how tricky my back has been over the past 2 years and the challenges I have faced with trying to heal and still function with a family to raise and a store to run–thank goodness for my great team of girls in the store. This last year has been an amazing journey in health and I am feeling fantastic again and my back is well on it’s way to being perfect once again. After only 3 months of my new health regime I had discontinued use of all pain medications, lost 30 lbs, was sleeping well and had incredible amounts of energy and it only got better from here. My biggest change has been my awareness of how important it is to pay attention to the food I eat and how it affects my bodies ability to heal. I was trying to heal from the outside in thru all kinds of treatments and discovered that it needed to be from the inside out. We really are what we eat! My new lifestyle diet of the past 16 months has been to adhere to a balance of eating 80% alkaline foods and 20% acid foods. Eating in an alkaline manner has been around for many, many years and is now slowly becoming a mainstream conversation but many people are still not familiar with it.
My first goal for 2010 is to share my passion for this lifestyle change that I made and help others who are facing illness or want to have optimal health. But who knew that a bad back would take me on this journey. The universe has funny ways of delivering it’s message and it takes courage to acknowledge the setbacks that we may think are setbacks and see them as a welcome challenge and possibly a new journey to who knows where. My second goal stems from my passion for design that has ignited my original plans to expand the building that my husband and I created for the store and further develop it by adding additional upper stories. I hope to begin this project with the blessing from the Town of Sidney! It’s always been a dream of mine to design & construct a building and I need to complete this dream. I believe that we all have dreams inside of us that need to be realized yet it sometimes requires enormous courage to take the steps towards making those dreams a reality.
So What’s my secret? I realized that as fantastic as it may seem to try to be super woman and do everything on my list of dreams all at once, that some parts of your life suffer when you try to do it all. Multi-tasking is my middle name but my ill-health in 2008 was the breaking point that lead me to recognize that without your health you can’t do a whole lot of anything. Soooo, to allow me to reach my next dream I made the difficult decision to complete my retail journey by listing The House Dressing Company for sale this month. There you have it – the secret is out! The store is now listed for sale and now I await for the universe to send me the right person.
Looking back on my 18 years with the store, it started with the dream of owning a small home accessories shop and perhaps awaiting each day behind a cash desk perusing decorating magazines in between customers. Hmmm…… after all these years I have yet to have a moment to do such a thing. The House Dressing Company took off and kept me more than busy, often 7 days a week between the 100’s of Martha Stewart type crafting classes (you may remember these) that I thoroughly enjoyed teaching over the 1st 10 years in business along with running the store. This really put the store on the map. Next up was my idea for a better place to house this growing business which I was so lucky to design and build and enjoy the benefits of for the past 8 years in business. Phew, it’s been an incredible journey! I have enjoyed every step of the way and have been as creative as I could be with a retail store by hosting Radio Shows, Inspirational Evenings at Charlie White Theatre, Christmas Home Tours, Designing Show Suites, Shaw TV decorating segments , our latest Christmas Decorating contests, this House Dressing Blog and much more.
So now it’s time for the store’s new journey to begin and it starts right here with you. You, our loyal customer have played an important role in the success of The House Dressing Company and I have You to thank. You have been amazing with your support of my home accessory and furniture business, by referring us and bringing your guests in to shop! I sincerely thank you for appearing regularly in our shop admiring our efforts to inspire you with our displays. It’s made the journey so rich and rewarding, you have no idea how grateful I am to you all. Any new owner will be lucky to have such a friendly and loyal community to embrace. I know you will warmly welcome the new owner and his or her creative contribution to Sidney in the future. What I look forward to is still being connected and supportive with the new owner as a landlord, helping him or her in achieving success as well as being an active property owner in Sidney while contributing to the building of our wonderful town. What I love about Sidney is how you can walk down the street and wave to the people that you meet. Luckily, this doesn’t only happen on Sesame Street! So I’ll probably see you on the boulevard! Sidney is such a warm, friendly community by the seaside that is a real gem. Those that haven’t discovered it yet have a treat in store for them because our little town just keeps getting better and better!
So now that the secret is out you can tell two friends. And who knows maybe you know someone who has a dream of owning a retail shop and you can share this secret with them. I am placing it in the hands of the universe to bring a wonderful new owner for my shop to continue on with offering You the best there is to offer in home accessories and furnishings right here in Sidney. Here’s to many more years of inspiration from The House Dressing Company in Sidney.
PS – Currently it is business as usual and will be until such time that a transaction takes place and once again, you’ll be the first to know! Next week I won’t be posting as I will be away on a lovely fitness retreat- working on strengthening my back and getting in better shape altogether, another 2010 goal!
PSS-I will be back shortly with another post for you where I will share ways in which you can help Haiti.
