A Welcome Back Letter
Hi friends, welcome back to the Rooted and Free blog! I feel like I should reintroduce myself before jumping back into the blogging world because I took off for 2 months unintentionally. Truthfully, it feels a little jarring to just jump right back in but here we are, just jumping in with both feet saying hi, I’m Kate and I am so excited to be back here on the blog.
Why did I unintentionally take 2 months off?
Well, for a really exciting reason - our boutique, Shop Rooted and Free transitioned from being an online and pop up boutique to an online and brick and mortar boutique! On March 1st, we opened our first storefront in the heart of our Florida town, Lakewood Ranch! It was both planned and came out of “no where” in the very best way and well, what was a dream became reality and literally took over my life. Ha!
A little backstory - I knew from the very beginning when I started the boutique that I wanted to have a storefront but I was very specific in where, I knew I wanted to stay close to home and I wanted to be in one of the downtown areas. And I really wanted to be on Main Street which is 10 minutes from my house, the kids school/sports and where we do everyday life so last year I emailed the property management company and asked them to put my name on a waist list and to contact me when they had something come available.
I put my name on the list and just went about life - working my pop ups and online business, balancing a growing business and my family and just hoping that one day something would come up. Well, in January after praying hard about next steps for Shop Rooted and Free (truthfully, I was getting burnt out of pop ups after 3 years) I received an email that a spot was coming open on Main Street. We looked at the space at the end of January and I knew immediately it was our next step, when my husband who had been against a B&M agreed that it was perfect I knew we had to jump on. Two weeks later we signed the lease and three weeks after that on March 1st we had our Grand Opening!
It was a very fast and furious month getting the store ready (thankfully it was a boutique before us so no structural work had to be done just cosmetic) - between painting, wallpapering, planning and prepping hundreds of new arrivals, decorating the store and promoting our Grand Opening, we opened the doors and the first day/weekend was just everything I could have imaged and more. God’s faithfulness in opening the right next steps for us and the doors he has opened since have just left me speechless.
We are now officially 5 weeks into the store being open and as we find our rhythm and get close to hiring a team (right now it is all just me, 7 days a week and ya’ll I am tired…the best tired but tired nonetheless lol) but I thought it is time for me to get back to blogging and sharing my day to day again. I love connecting with you all through the blog and social media and I have truly missed that aspect of Rooted and Free.
Now, I don’t know that I will be able to maintain everything I was doing before every week (5 blog posts, a weekly newsletter, weekly meal plan, etc) but, I do plan to do as much as I can and of course will get back to normal as we hire a team to help in store. But, even though I don’t know what it will all look like, I am excited to be back here sharing my heart, things I am learning as a working mom and favorite things I come across in everyday life.
If you have been following along with Shop Rooted and Free, thank you so much for being part of our journey and cheering me on through it all. It has been a dream come true to open this space and I know that God is just getting started with what he is going to do in this space! The best truly is yet to come and I am so thankful you are on this journey with me!
