It's Raining, It's Pouring

I woke Sunday morning at our friend Katie Palmer's (SoBo Style, Columbus, Ohio) to the sound of steel wheels on a gravel road -- and we're not talking Lucinda Williams here.





It took me a minute to figure out that what I was hearing was actually rain, hard enough to turn Katie's street into a virtual river. Not what you'd expect in January. Imagine if it had been snow; Katie would have had to keep us all week!



We'd arrived the evening before to the best smell coming from Katie's kitchen -- she'd whipped up a pot of Green Chili Soup, which we enjoyed with tortillas, sour cream and grated cheddar -- yum! I'm getting the recipe for sure. We had a chance to catch up on Katie's December news and hear about her trip to the Atlanta gift show. She'd also saved several episodes of "Man Shops Globe" for us to see. On our last visit, we'd talked about the controversy surrounding this Sundance tv show, which follows one of Anthropologie's main buyers as he scouts for product ideas. It was really interesting -- you could see why some call it "Man Rips Off Third World," but it was still intriguing to see what does go into their design decisions.

The next morning, we headed over to Northstar, one of our favorite Columbus restaurant's for breakfast (prosciutto with poached eggs and rosemary focaccia...ahhh). Then it was off to the store to unload. The rain slowed things down a little, but Katie always has a great crew on hand to help out; this time it was Matt, Todd, Dad, Mom, Heather, in addition to Katie, Joe and me.

The store looked great -- some of the first arrivals from Katie's gift show picks had started to come in. I bought several gifts, as well as a super-cute jewelry stand for my own dresser. We were back on the road by lunch time, with a package of delicious oatmeal raisin cookies from Katie's mom. Would they make it all the way back to Indiana? Hmmm. Probably not.

We stopped at Heart of Ohio and left with two carts full of great finds. Really welcome this time of year, as merchandise is harder to come by. Next stop was Tim Horton's for mochas, then it was full throttle as we headed to Indy, dinner and Barnes and Noble. There was plenty of time for me to impress Joe with my "Name That Tune skills," plus lots of looking at magazines and talking about ideas and plans. This week, we'll be getting ready for Midland. See you there! xo