2025 Behind us and a Thank You!
On this first day of the year I’d like to extend my thanks to our customers. It is so encouraging to keep going when we get such good reviews, comments in the store, and return customers. Thank you so much for your continued support of our business. When you support a small business you are essentially supporting a small group of people that are your countrymen. We live in a small town, we work in a small town, in turn we try to support local businesses and USA companies with the money you spend with us. We try not to spend much at the big box stores or on Amazon (I’ve literally made 3 purchases on Amazon in a year). We take it to heart that you trust us with what you put on your skin and we will continue to do our best to bring you the healthiest and most natural products that you can find.
It’s been a hard year on a personal level, Larry got very ill from a hernia in February. He had a surgery in February and came through it all well. It was
scary but he is much better now overall!
He had the hernia surgery in Ft Myers, Florida and we do believe that Doctor Tomas DO did save his life, this photo is right after his surgery.
We lost my mom in late July unexpectedly, which overwhelmed my heart, soul, and time. Not only my mom, but my son’s Grandma, my husband’s Mother-In-Law, and our helper at the store. I wanted to give her an official retirement from knitting the wash cloths we sold since 2005 but didn’t get to finish that fun with her. We all wondered why we could hardly keep up with the labeling and wrapping this holiday season and then one day I realized because mom was not there helping us. She would come down for 3 or 4 days and do nothing but sit in the back and demand I bring her more labels and products! I watched my whole family dynamic change once mom passed. We all miss her.
Photo of mom and I in the back yard. Iona A Garrett 1942-2025.
Another thing that happened is that my personal facebook account was hacked (seems like nothing after the above and actually it happened before losing mom, which meant I couldn't even share with people about mom's death) and FB was absolutely NO help, as I desperately wanted to get their advice, help and warn them that next they’ll be in my business account for Fountain Alley and one day my son called and said, “Do you know someone is selling underwear in Vietnamese on your facebook?” To make a long story short, it takes much time and effort to fix all the problems it caused, in my checking account, charge accounts, and finally I found out that our Attorney General’s office is basically doing FB’s support, as they have a portal to FB and the employee said it’s all she does all day long. And that she told her boss she wondered if she worked for him or FB?! I then understood that our tax dollars are paying for FB support. I’m not over that yet. They also do not help businesses, only personal accounts. So guess what? They got my personal FB account back, but I was so angry I decided I didn’t need them. For months I held out, but then the holidays rolled around and I realized I had only FB and Instagram now to reach my customers so I did get it back. So if you are on FACEBOOK please like and share ours. We went from thousands of followers to now having 30. It’s really terrible they don’t care, but they don’t. Your local store cares, your local business cares. Big corp does not care.
I feel like tin he beginning of a year I’m making a snowman. I roll that little ball around with big ideas in my head, picturing all the new things I could make as I ready myself for the new years paperwork that must be done. Then we take a quick vacation, pretty soon it’s spring, trying to juggle the store and get a garden planted on the farm. Next thing you know it’s July 4th and the season of busy-ness in Madison is in a full roll. My snow ball is getting bigger and bigger. No longer planning a snowman now it’s just a big overwhelming ball! We talk of getting ready for Christmas early. Then September hits and IT’S ON! We’re just trying to recover from the busy summer! Halloween comes and right after that we decorate for Christmas! The town encourages it because we’re a tourist town. By Christmas Eve I am rolling down a big hill with my hands and feet sticking out of a great big snowball! But here we are, last day of the year and the snowball stopped a week ago and has almost completely melted. The employees (especially the newer ones), look bewildered that not that many people are coming into the store. The website orders have slowed. We’re starting to get the behind-the-scenes messiness cleaned up. I stayed home on the Winter Solstice on Sunday, days before Christmas, and made a wreath with everything on it found within 300 feet of my house. Be sure and look it up on facebook. It came out beautiful. I needed that. Go here to follow us on facebook at facebook.com/FountainAlleyBodyCare
Larry and I always do Christmas Eve at the store together and let all the employees off. It’s sometimes busy with last minute people, (believe me, no judgement here!) but it’s a special day. Everyone is heading somewhere, people are cheery, hurried, busy, but chatty. Then it get’s quiet and we always get a little mushy. It’s an overwhelming feeling, really, at closing time on Christmas Eve. The craziness to keep everything made, labeled, wrapped is suddenly gone, with the twinkling of an eye. We look around and see we made it through another year, thinking back on our humble beginning of having one table in the doorway during the Chautauqua Festival, 2009.
Photo after Clay's last day of work. Clay and Luke, this photo reminds me of one I have somewhere I'll have to find and post, when they were 17 and 14.
One of our sons, Clay, who has worked at the store counter since we opened it in 2009, has just worked his last day at the store for this season of his life. He has trained and taught in mixed martial arts and such since he was at most 13. He has had his own training center for quite some time and is also a firearms instructor, but he would still work a day or two at the store. He is moving his business to another state! He has made our candles since 2007 and will continue to sell them in our store, don’t worry! He did most of my website work, some social media, managed and trained other team members and basically did everything I needed him to do that I could not figure out. I think him being home schooled caused him to be relied on to learn whatever we needed to do as a small business. Set up a printer, navigate the website additions, take website photos, just so much stuff no title could lasso it all. But mostly I’ll miss working with him. He always made the day fun! Although a stern person, customers love him. So that’s a big change at Fountain Alley, too!
On a good note, our Organic Tea line is going well and we are adding more types soon. Luke introduced .999 copper rounds at the holidays and seems interest is peaked enough he’ll be continuing them into the new year. They make great gifts, encouraging saving something worth saving, and are frankly fun to carry around. I’ve found other uses I plan to share in a future blog or newsletter.
I hope you all have a Happy and Blessed New Year!