Back to my First Love

Maid Elizabeth warming up Master Calvin

It is finished.  Naturally Cozy has been successfully transferred to its new owners.  Our final orders are out the door, the sewing machine is quiet and bolts of fabric no longer fill our "shouse".  I have ceased to be haunted by looming orders, deadlines or mechanical malfunctions.  I don't wake up in the morning with the weight of the world on my shoulders, organizing my schedule before my feet even hit the floor.  Once again, I am but a wife and mother, seeking nothing more than to serve my family.  I am back to my first love.

Siblings at play

Before Naturally Cozy, I spent my time caring for my husband, nurturing my children and managing my home.  As my business grew, my time was no longer my own and I longed to return to my first love.  And now, 4 1/2 years since I took my first Naturally Cozy order, I am once again free to be "only" a wife and a mother.  I can hardly contain my excitement!

Miss Serenity doing a handstand

What did we do with our first free day in years?  Sir Knight and I packed up the children and headed to the lake!  We spent hour after glorious hour splashing in the tide created by passing speedboats, playing "King of the Hill" on the top of a driftwood log and chasing each other to our hearts content.  Oh, wonderful, sweet days of summer!

King of the driftwood

I am so grateful for the blessing of Naturally Cozy, but I am thankful beyond belief to once again resume my rightful role of wife and mother and return to my first love.

Taking Care of Business

As most of you know, I have been doing a lot of soul searching about continuing our business.  No decisions have been set in stone, as of yet, however, I have revamped the website and restocked a few items.

Tea Cozies are currently available, as are T-shirts (at a new, reduced price!) and Wolverine moral patches.  Reusable menstrual pads and incontinence products may be available shortly (after a complete revamp of business practices - we are still fine-tuning what works and what doesn't).  I will keep you posted on our progress.

I truly appreciate your encouragement and support as we have worked on our problem areas.  I am deeply indebted.

Tea Cozies are Here!

Finally - we have our tea cozies up on our website!  We have had these in the works for quite a while and I am so excited to share them with you.  They are very cute and fit almost any tea pot, all the while leaving the handle nice and cool.  They have quite a lot of batting in them, so they will retain the heat in the pot for a long time.

Every cozy is completely unique - no two are alike, some are even reversible.  As we expand our selection, we will post those on the site as well.

Tea time is such a wonderful occasion in our home.  I hope these tea cozies will be the foundation of a wonderful new tradition in your home or an addition to your already resplendent tea table.

Naturally Cozy Factory Tour & Coming Soon

I have long neglected the Naturally Cozy website.  It was definitely due for a face lift.  I still have a little work to do (I will be offering different colored snaps on the panty liners versus different colored threads) and I need to update some of the Paypal buttons.

We had a lot of fun choosing new pictures and the Tour gives you a really good idea of what we do and were we work.  The Factory Tour is a slide show, so it make take a little while to load on your computer.  You'll have to let me know what you think!

Coming Soon!

We are also in the process of expanding our offerings at Naturally Cozy.  Miss Calamity is making hot water bottle covers that we will be offering either by themselves or with a hot water bottle.  Tea Cozies will finally make it on our web page, hopefully in a number of different patterns.  And for those of you who sew, I found the  most wonderful thread holders.  These holders are made of cast iron and metal, unlike the plastic ones you find at your local fabric store.  They are wonderful and very affordable.  In the near future, we plan on offering cloth diapers not only for babies but for adults as well.  We need to be prepared for everything!

Miss Calamity's Comfy Cozy
(Hot Water Bottle Cover)

Tea Cozy

Thread stand

Cast iron base

After Action Report

Its been so long!  Last week we spent every waking moment sewing and preparing for our upcoming gun show (not to mention tossing a little hospitality into the mix!).  The days were long, my house suffered, but a wonderful weekend spent meeting so many amazing people made our work well worth the effort.

Friday, the kids and I loaded up our truck and headed off to Spokane to set up for the show. We lugged armload after armload through three rooms to get to our table until we finally were ready to lay out the table.  We covered the table with a wool blanket laid over the top of a white cloth (I wanted to hide all of our extra boxes under the table), brought out a really neat wooden military box to contain pens, labels, business cards and money for change and commenced setting out our wares.

First, I stacked a number of Patrice's Simplicity Primer, complete with a neat little advertisement that stood on top of the books.  Next, I laid out The Prepared Family Guide to Uncommon Diseases, Naturally Cozy Pads and Naturally Concealed holsters (all the guys loved my table!).  Real gun show fodder followed.  A Rock Island 1911 .45ACP, Remington 870 (with a ported barrel and green furniture), a single shot .22 and a Remington A303 brought the gun enthusiasts around and a few stocks and other parts kept people looking.  We had a range finder, some pressure canners and a number of other odds and ends to fill out the table so that we did not embarrass ourselves.  All in all, we made a pretty good show.

After we arranged our table, we all took turns wandering through the show, seeing what everyone else had to offer.  We picked up a whole bunch of sutures, some IV start kits and a 2 gallon thermos (for tea in the woods, of course!).

We did sell a tremendous amount in a short amount of time.  Our guns were gone the first day.  Books sold well and I even sold some feminine pads (at a gun show - can you believe it?).  I handed out more business cards for the concealed holsters than I can count, and even sold one.  There were ladies trying the holsters on right over their clothes!  Amazingly, the guys loved the holsters and we even had a few fellows brings their wives back to the show so they could check them out.

Without a doubt, the very best part of our gun show weekend was meeting people.  I had the great honor to meet so many of the local folks who read this blog.  What a group of people you are!  Not only are you doing what you can to prepare for your physical needs, and the needs of those around you - I was struck with the fervency you all have for preparing spiritually for the days ahead.  I am proud to call you brothers and sisters.

Truth be told, I am not in a hurry to do another gun show.  It takes a lot of work to get ready and it is hard to be away from home for a solid three days.  That being said, I am thankful our family took the time to do this show and the Lord willing, I will see you again next year.

Coming Soon....To a Gun Show Near You

So sorry for the silence of late, but I have been busily preparing for my first gun show.  Admittedly, it will not the the first gun show that I have ever attended, just the first one that I will have a table.  In reality, gun shows and I are tight.  My dad has always loved them, and as children, my brother and I spent a considerable amount of time wandering in gun shows from table to table.

When I was growing up, my dad was the proprietor of a little country store.  He sold grain, tack, used furniture and army surplus, not to mention anything else he thought might sell.  He issued hunting and fishing licenses, rented videos and sold guns.  He built a woodstove (in the shop at the high school where he taught), which heated the building and there were tables and chairs surrounding the stove.  We had a bakery case full of doughnuts and sundry other eatables and the coffee pot was always full.  Dad's store served as the local meeting place.  The troubles of the world were hashed out around that wood stove as the coffee flowed.  Deals were made, necessities purchased and small town life was lived, all within the confines of our little store.

Going to gun shows remind me of my dad's store.  The smell, the people, the fiercely independent streak brings me back to the days of my past.  I remember digging through musty boxes full of surplus, making sure the contents were not past their usefulness.  I remember cartons full of packs, pouches and belts, some from our military and some (ugh!) the Germans.  I, of course, could spot the difference in an instance - knowing full well that ours were quite superior.  I remember wearing military wool pants to school in the winter time trying to start a fashion trend and thinking it was normal for people to wear military blouses as jackets.

When I would get homesick, after moving to Seattle, I would frequent a huge Army/Navy  surplus store on 1st Ave.  I would walk past bins full of mag pouches, feeling each one.  I would look at the dummies sporting gas masks and finger the wool blankets with the medical symbol on the corner - and I would feel like I was home.  I would bury my face in the piles of BDU's and breath deeply, and I would think of my dad.

Now, as I walk past table after gun show table, trailing after my husband, I am reminded of my childhood, trailing after my father.  I feel the mag pouches, finger the blankets and feel like I am home.

Soon, I get to have my very own table!  I am going to be at the Spokane Gun Show next weekend (11/4 - 11/6).  We will have books (The Prepared Family Guide to Uncommon Diseases), pads (Naturally Cozy) and miscellaneous gun stuff.  Yes, I know, with pads there, all of the guys will be in a hurry to hang out at my table!  My dad is coming to share a table with me (I'm so excited!) and Maid Elizabeth will help run the booth.

I would love an opportunity to meet any of you folks that are in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area.  If you find yourself at the gun show, I will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Stop by and say Hi!

Until then....

Our Life in Pictures

My favorite place to spend a quiet
moment with God

A beautiful pink rose blooming in my garden

And my very favorite yellow roses!

Master Calvin sleeping with mama
kitty and her 4 kittens

Our children's very big back yard

Taking a big leap into a little creek

Siblings and best friends

Master Calvin baking
in the living room
(with his apron on!)

A fresh batch of raspberry jam
(in lovely Weck jars)

Playing with homemade playdough

Princess Dragon Snack creating

A really cool set of pads I
made for a customer

Master Calvin pretending to be
asleep on a stair tread

A typical evening scene
in "Little  Shouse on
the Prairie"

For you, Maid Elizabeth....A little taste of home!

New Business Cards

Finally, the business cards I ordered a number of weeks ago came in!  I think they are beautiful and they are just what I wanted.  I love the cottage, because, after all, mine is a cottage business.

What do you think?

I must be in business!

 UPS came trundling up our driveway today bearing gifts.  I am now buying fabric by the bolt which is so exciting!  No more making emergency trips to town to pick up some more fabric to get a set of pads out in a reasonable time - I will have what I need at my fingertips.  Now the only problem I have is were to put it!  Oh the joys and trials of having a small business.