Well...this was a curve ball I just didn't see coming!

I've heard of life during war time...but what's a little bohemian retailer to do during social distancing? For years I've been bobbing and weaving as life has thrown me curve ball after curve ball. I've gone from selling vintage clothing (what the hell is eBay and why are all my customers shopping there (1999!) to closing that shop and becoming an eBay seller and making a pretty good living! To...what? Nobody likes buying vintage clothes on eBay anymore... Okay I'll open another brick and mortar... I miss selling to my costumers face to face, anyway! (2002)

Then there was the whole fiasco of crazy or mean or crazy & mean landlords that made me move my shop every three years! (2002/2005/2008) And then that little financial crash that I almost made it through except my then husband decided he was an artist and didn't want to work any more! Yeah... we got divorced & I closed my shop & moved to Seattle to be closer to my sister.

So...I just moved my shop onto the street. Yup, I sold at the Fremont and the Georgetown markets! (Those are street markets in Seattle.) I had it all figured out except then winter came and man is it hard to sell clothing when people are freezing! 

Side Gigs! I'm a happy gal & man can I keep my chin up! I started house sitting, and in Seattle there are a lot of people who really like to go on vacation... you know, because of the rain and stuff. So, I got about six clients and I was NEVER home! I felt like I had six homes and an amazing assortment  of sweet, sweet pets and I just bounced around from life to life while selling my wears on the weekend. My motto was just say yes! Someone wanted me to clean their house? Yes! Someone wanted me to pick up their kids at school because they were remodeling their apartment in Germany? Yes! Someone wanted me to weed and prune their yard? Yes!

And of course, I was newly single... so I discovered the joys of on line dating! (Oh yes...I'm being sarcastic!) But there were many weeks where those bizarre dates were the only real meals I had... oh, I was damned if I wasn't going to fall in love with someone with a REAL job! Someone who hadn't wasted their youth being a punk rock artist living in a studio apartment & dating ne'er do well guitar players. And man did I date! I dated a lawyer, I dated a professor, I dated a pastor, I dated a porn star & yeah, you guessed it, I fell head over heels in love with a ne'er do well guitar player! 

We had been dating for about a year when his 87 year old dad, who coincidentally had retired in my home town of Eugene, Oregon asked my love and I if we would move back to Eugene to help take care of him in his old age!

Wow! I did not see that coming!

But by then I was a little tired of Seattle and was more then a little homesick. Oh, and did I mention his pops to sweeten the pot loaned me part of what I needed to re-open my brick and mortar?

The birth of the Bitchin' Boutique! 

So, now it's been seven years since we've been back in Eugene (back home for me but all new and a small town for my honey) and life has been okay. It's always a struggle when you run a little shop but I'm used to never quite knowing what each week is going to bring. You know, bob and weave! Being a small business owner is a lot like being a boxer. Some times you get knocked down but you just get right back up and start swinging. Sometimes you get in a good punch and you can dance around for a bit.

I thought I had figured it out! I thought I understood how to navigate my little life through the ups and downs but man, oh man... this corona thing is a curve ball I just did not see coming!

So, here we are in this new world where I go to work but no one comes in! So, I finally have the time to get my shop on-line! It takes time to take hundreds of pictures, and then put them up here and describe them! And now I have that time! Yep, that chin is up and I'm trying not to quake in my boots!

I really thank you so much for looking at my wears and maybe finding something you love and maybe buying it, and helping me yet again, weave and bob and hopefully, avoid getting knocked out!