Road Trip

After enduring HOT and HUMID weather for the past week or so, we were treated to an absolutely picture perfect day on Monday. Tim and I headed out for a road trip. But first things first. Our first stop was STARBUCKS!

We headed out on Route 322...what a day for a drive in the beautiful Countryside of Central Pa!

Our mission was to pick up another candle order from our friends, Richard and Carolyn at PA Soy Candles in Lebanon, PA. We arrived at their farm. The building next to the barn is the candle shop...I just love walking through the door and seeing our friends.

We always look forward to seeing them and chatting with them. When we get there we seem to stay way too long, but we enjoy talking with them. This time we got to meet Cora Lee, who helps out in the candle shop. She was so nice and we look forward to seeing her again. She has a friend that lives in our town and Cora Lee promised us that she will stop by The Brickhouse when she visits her friend.

This is an area of PA Soy's candle shop that makes Tim nervous!

It is the area where I go and sniff candles. Tim gets nervous because I always leave this area with more candles to add to our original order! All the candles smell SO GOOD! I can't help it....the candles are awesome. But this time I was able to control myself and we stuck to the original order. But I did leave with a list, a long list of the candles that I want for our next order!

When we left Richard and Carolyn's we headed north on scenic Route 419. What a nice drive through the country.

We ended up at one of our favorite places to eat when we pick up our candles, The Franklin House in Schaefferstown.

I don't want to make this post too long, SO you need to stop by again to read more about our day trip. After our lunch we did a little walking tour around Schaefferstown and I will share pictures with you in our next blog post. Thanks for stopping by our blog and if you are in the area, please stop by The Brickhouse and smell the new candles!

Heat Wave

Enjoying the heat wave! If not enjoy the pictures!

There doesn't that feel better?

Enough Already.......

Enough of Summer, bring on Autumn! Right after Christmas I am always anxious for summer to arrive but right now I am SO ready for Fall to arrive. It is my favorite Season and I cann0t wait for the first day of Fall. A big box of the Fall Season arrived today at The Brickhouse and it has made me so excited for Summer to be over so I can put these new items in the Shop. Peggy is a new Crafter/friend here at The Brickhouse. We were told by our friends/Crafters, April and Tony that we had to check out Peggy's wares. Well, April and Tony have never let us down and we are blown away by Peggy's talent. I am sure you all may have heard me let out a shout of joy when I opened the box that was delivered today from Miss Peggy! I so want to put these Fall goodies in the Shop for our customers to see them...but it is a little too early for that. So we will have to wait, but I can tease our customers by showing the pictures of these wonderful goodies. My pictures do not do these justice, you have to stop by the Brickhouse and see them in person.

We finally got some much needed rain here in Millersburg. I think I can see my flowers smiling. For one thing, they are standing up straighter, no more drooping from the heat and drought. Along with rain we have had some "cooler" days. Not sweater weather cooler, but at least it hasn't been 100 degrees. A local Amish family decided to take their "convertible' out for a trip to the local store. I had to take a picture of them from my window as they were driving by our home. Howie also had to go to the door and bark a greeting to them as they passed!

With the cooler temps I was able to paint and stain signs for the Shop. My side-kick, Howie was supervising me!


Please stop by again and do a little porch sitting with us here at The Brickhouse.

Praying for Rain

See the tire swing behind my blooming Bee Balm? When we bought our home 6 years ago the previous owners asked us if we were going to keep the tire swing. We said yes we would. I loved the tire swing. No, I never did swing in it but I really wanted to. Our nieces and nephews and other young kids when visiting us would spend a lot of time swinging away. Tim and I noticed a few months ago that the branch that the swing was hanging from, was not looking too healthy. We had to tell the young ones that they were not allowed to swing on the tire anymore. It broke their hearts and it broke ours, too.

On Father's Day we woke up to this. The branch broke overnight. We are thankful that no one was hurt. We saved the tire and we plan to find a healthy tree branch and put the swing back up!

Look how nice my Bee Balm is looking..well I should say, WAS LOOKING.

This is how they look now. We have been having very hot weather here in Central Pa and very very little rain. We have well water and I have been trying to water the flowers but I get worried using our water to try to keep my plants alive. It breaks my heart to see them like this. I pray we get rain soon..Lots of RAIN! We need days of a good soaking rain.

This is our lawn. It is a crunchy, brown, horrible mess.

The field behind our yard is a field of soybeans. And beyond that field is a field of corn. They say that the corn should be "knee high by July". It may be knee high but it is looking bad. As much as I am upset with our flowers and grass dying at least we don't depend on those for our living. I feel so bad for the farmers. I pray that we get rain, soon. I will never complain about a rainy day every again!

On another note, Tim and I would like to thank all of you who have commented on the loss of our Dexter Dog. Your words of comfort have meant a lot to us and we thank all of you. We are missing Dex but we know he is running around in Heaven right now and all his pain is gone. It also helps to have Howie Dog with us. He is our crazy dog and when we feel like crying he makes us laugh. Again, a big thank you to all of you for being our friends.

I will end this post with pictures of my flowers before the drought and heat wave..sigh....

R.I.P Dexter Dog

DEXTER

Nov 1996~July 2010

Our buddy, Dexter left us on Monday, July 5th. He was an old dog and we knew that someday we would have to face not having Dex with us. But we just weren't ready for it to be this soon.

Dex thought he was a lap dog. Tim had just sat down and Dex crawled up on his lap! (pardon the messy room..we had just taken up the carpet so we could refinish the floor)

Dex loved the snow. We remember when we moved from Texas to New York and Dex first experienced snow! It was so funny to see him walk in snow for the first time.
Even as an old dog this past Winter, Dex still loved walking in the snow.

Up until a few months ago, Dexter loved to run out to get the newspaper and bring it in the house..He was a true Retriever!

Paper boy Dexter!

Dexter and his best pal, Tim.

We Loved you Dex. You were the best puppy. The memories we have of you make us smile even though we want to cry. See you again, Buddy!

Selling 'the Experience' - Part 2.

Hello folks - it's Tim - I know - it's been a LONG time since I last wrote a post for our Blog.

After I did the post called Selling 'the Experience', I happened to do a little searching on the net to see if I could find any other stories about Selling the experience. I found one that caught my attention and it got me thinking a little more about how Patti and I 'sell' the Brickhouse 'experience'.

I found the article in Businessweek.com and it is called 'How to Sell More Than a Product', written by Carmine Gallo. In the article Carmine writes: 'Ask yourself, what does my brand stand for? Try to answer it in one sentence without using the name of the product your company sells.' He sited examples from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (who Gallo credits with posing this question in an earlier conversation), entrepreneur Richard Branson and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

Now I will admit that Brickhouse Craft Shop is a very small business, but I will tell you that I know what our brand stands for and I can sum it up with one word:

Connections.

Yes, the product we sell is crafts. But that's not really what we're 'about'. We don't focus on selling crafts. For some of you, that may seem strange.

What we're about is Connections. Even before we opened Brickhouse Craft Shop, Patti began connecting with crafters from across the USA. And since opening in December 2007 we have been 'connecting' in many ways.

We've connected crafters with other crafters, we've connected crafters with our customers, we've even connected customers with customers. And Patti and I have connected with old classmates and even relatives we haven't seen for years.

But what we are about - and what we enjoy the most, is connecting with our customers. Whether they live in the area or are out and about for a day trip, we love to chat with them. We have shared many stories and laughs. We've shared in personal joys - and sorrows. And we have a space on the wall behind our counter where we're accumulating cards and letters from customers. Our customers really are like family and we look forward to their visits.

So while we hope our customers like our crafts, we also hope they enjoy their shopping experience.