You Get Us! You Really Get Us!

My boyfriend and I recently became groupies of the ABC show “The Office.” We were a little late—two and a half seasons late, actually—to join the legions of Americans who are officially in love with this show. In fact, although we didn’t know each other two years ago when the show debuted, we each had vowed NOT to become watchers. Why? He, being a business owner himself, simply didn’t have the time to become addicted to another TV show. I, on the other hand, staunchly refused to follow the crowd. All of America is wild about it? I couldn’t have cared less. This is how it often goes with me. For instance, back in the day when I was an intellectually precocious college undergrad majoring in English (focus in Creative Writing), I would walk right past the Hot New Chick Lit table in the front of the store, bypassing even the table featuring the New York Times Bestsellers, and head straight to the Classics section. Ah, what I was missing! These days, I won’t miss a new Jennifer Weiner novel, and am proud of it!

But I digress. The point here is that while "The Office" may not be the most sophisticated show on TV, it sure is entertaining, and it’s one of those things about which people say, you either get it, or you don’t. And unlike in my younger days, I don’t think I’m too good to really, really like something that everybody gets.

Now on to shop talk. I’ll admit it: my mom and I love it when you “get” our shop. Have you ever noticed how small boutiques each have their own identity, the imprint of the owner indelibly on every display, in each object? It’s not like shopping at Target (nothing against our beloved Tar-jhay, though). Big box department stores definitely have a brand of their own—from the logo to the in-store signage to the employees’ uniforms, you see it in every detail. But the idea of a store having a soul—a living, breathing, colorful, identifiable SOUL—outside of its employees, this is something that just can’t be found at your big box retailer. In any case, The Blissful Home definitely has a soul, carefully and lovingly shaped and nurtured and tended to by my mom and I, and nothing makes us happier than when we know you “get” it.

Here are a few things about our shop that we’re so happy you “get”:

1) You get that just because St. Valentine’s Day is impending, that doesn’t mean every wall of the place will be festooned with pink and red hearts and Cupids. You get that there’s a less commercial-ly way to do seasonal decorating, and that’s what we’re about most of the time. Not that you won’t see a few bunnies in our shop at Easter time, but it won’t look like an Easter egg dye factory exploded in here, either.

2) You get that ‘imperfect’ doesn’t always mean ‘flawed.’ Especially when it’s meant to look that way. We have a great vendor from whom we buy a lot of antiques and reproductions, and their credo is something like “if you are a fussy, persnickety person who irons your sheets and dusts the top of your refrigerator, then our finds are probably not for you.” Here, here! Granted, there are some items that need to be in A+ condition to function well for you, but a salvaged, distressed side chair? I don’t know about you, but we live to cherish every chipped edge and cracking rung.

3) You get that not every object you invite into your life has to have a practical use. Can’t something just be in your world to look pretty and bring a smile to people’s faces? I think so. Sure, we have your kitchen linens, your cookbooks, your candles, and your lotions, but we also have an irresistible rustic deer’s head with chippy paint and lots of personality. We have retro lady’s head vases that look fabulous with three big, mismatched fresh flowers in them. And we have paper parasols. Parasols!

So this is a thank you to all of you out there—and you know who you are—who get us. We hope we get you, too. We try to be a shop where you can find things you won’t see anywhere else, used in ways you might not have imagined, that inspire you to live a life that makes a whole lot of whimsical sense to you.