(Omg, I get wordy when emotional. TL;DR: I love you š«¶š¼)
Itās been another wild year! Iām prone to over sharing whenever I write a personal message, and this year wonāt be any different š but this year end is not feeling quite as heavy as the last three.
Many of you have been around since the beginning, but hereās a little recap of the last three years:
We opened just after Thanksgiving in 2019. Our original opening with a kitchen (for @wunderbudder) fell through but we opened anyway, planning on building a kitchen in the spring of 2020. Well, you know what happened, so instead of building a kitchen, we had to close for three months.
We didnāt have a customer base yet (except some of you who are still here - I remember š) and we were too new to receive any funding. We scrapped our way through 2020, and through 2021. We just barely hung on for over two full years until the spring of 2022 when it came to a ānow or neverā moment to finally build our kitchen.
We were only supposed to be closed for 4-6 weeks, but after losing our contractor, I had to take on much of the work myself (and with Mike and friends š). A short close turned into four months.
I spent most of the last three years barely hanging on, āputting out firesā, and spending all of my time just trying to catch up.
But after our reopening in September, everything has felt different. I finally feel like weāre where we need to be.
We got here for two main reasons:
One is that Iām tenacious AF (along with having a super supportive Mike)
And the other is ALL OF YOU.
Our long beginning seems like a sob-story, but itās really an amazing story about community.
It means so much to me that you all support this little local business (actually two businesses in one, Alchemy & Herbs and Wunder Budder), from going out of your way to support us when we were closed, to us becoming part of your regular refill life.
From our āplease, I hope they like usā stage to āoh, they keep coming back, this is amazing and how can we become betterā stage.
We only started making teas because you all kept asking for them, and now theyāre our best sellers!
We wouldnāt be here without you and this amazing community within a community that weāre building together.
Iām so grateful for all of you, and Iām looking forward to what this new year will bring.
(Workshops! It will be bringing workshops. Drop a note about what youād like to do. We start planning in Jan.)
I canāt wait to see you on Jan. 7th!
Xo,
Lisa