Well, this has been a long enough blog silence, don’t you think?
We did indeed rest and travel these last few weeks like we predicted. We went down together to Shelly’s brother’s wedding in Iowa, I spent nearly 2 weeks in New Mexico and driving home, and I took the kids up to the Cities for their first-ever Twins game. Millie and I raced each other through all seven Harry Potter books, we splashed in the above-ground pool in the back yard every day, and built fires in the firepit at night.
And we did one thing we weren’t predicting when we split for July: We decided to get out of the thrift business. We’ve begun looking for someone else–A family? An organization?–who can run Jumble and benefit from it.
Why? Lots of reasons, a couple of biggies.
My time at the Glen Workshop a few weeks ago reminded me I’m a writer, cleared out everything inside me that was in the way of living like it, and filled me with the resolve to do the work every day. Jumble’s good, but I can’t give my best to both of these creative, hardworking lives. I’ll have more to say about this in a few future posts.
Also, at home, many of our expectations for the store–a place to work together, find a creative outlet, live a stable daily schedule, and so on–came with more stress than we anticipated, more than I can help Shelly and the kids handle. A little like taking home 50 emotional-bucks from our work there every day, but looking back and finding we had spent 60 or 85 or 110 to get the job done.
Unsustainable. So, after praying, thinking, feeling, and talking about this lots, it seems best to get out. You all have been interested in Jumble and supportive of us all along–Thank you!–and we’ll keep you posted about the rest of the store’s story as we go.
That deficit is not the case with actual cash-bucks, though. Every month we were open, Jumble was in the black. We’re proud of the job we’ve done creating the store, and it would be terrifically gratifying to find someone who would take Jumble, run it, and benefit from it.
It’s a great little place. And it would be great for us, too, if we could simply shop there. Of course we would shop there!
We’ve had this plate hanging around for a few weeks. It’s just classy-looking and deco-looking enough to make us wonder what luxury liner or mid-century South Beach dinner club it came from.
Shelly and the kids are resting from store work. For me, the next several days are a hard-working break for creativity: I’m at the 
Jumble will close on Friday 24 July for a few weeks of family travel and rest. 
Got our first sales tax paid last night. Our first sales tax payment ever, less than six hours before the midnight deadline. Fortunately, the Minnesota Department of Revenue 
