Hi guys! Today is a very special day for our little company. It's been one year since the day we applied for our business license. We had begun our DIY IDEA that previous May when my youngest daughter and co-owner of Plant Joy & Co Anna was graduating high school. It was the beginning of the Covid season and the new way of living it brought with it. We had previously rented a park pavilion at Cliff Cave Park to hold a party in Anna's honor but of course everything shut down. We did some brainstorming and decided to do a drive by graduation party in front of my mom's in Arnold along with three other 2020 graduates, my nephew Luke and friends Peter and Owen. It was decided each graduate would set up a pop up tent and in that tent display pics, info on themselves, a saying that they liked or described them, and each would give a take-away party favor type items. Anna was living by the "No rain, no flowers" saying and we decided on handing out fresh flowers as guests drove by (see above pics) We set up buckets of flowers and wrapped and tied after guests told us which ones they wanted. It was FUN! The rest, we could say, was history starting with our chiropractor Dr. Amy asking us to come give flowers out at her business where we set up alongside a coffee truck. Oh, and kind of funny now, not then, is that it RAINED so hard the day of the party!
Let me tell you the, shall we say, not so ideal way we came about applying for our license on Feb 7, 2021. It was also the day my father, Daddy, passed away due to Covid. See his pic above, left. He had been in the hospital for a little bit and been on the ventilator nearly a week and we therefore had been sitting around my mom's waiting and waiting for news, for improvement, for him to come home to us. The end result was not as we had hoped and prayed as my daddy lost the battle to Covid but it had sparked an idea for a business based on that graduation party and in the waiting we decided to just do it! My daddy was a very health-challenged guy, having SEVENTEEN medical conditions listed on his hospital chart that he had struggled with day in and day out for several years. Mostly he did not complain and in fact was quick to ask how your own struggle was going despite the pain and suffering he was enduring. He was also, shall we say, a very ornery man (sorry Mom.) Anyone that knows him would say this and one someone, at the funeral, said that he would pick on you and tease you nonstop especially if you were the new person in the room who didn't know anyone else or was clearly uncomfortable, that his teasings were all inclusive. And that that teasing always brought that one person into the fold, was made to feel welcome and loved. It's like what Jesus did, looking for the one that was lost or forgotten only in my dad's unique (ornery) way. It was magic how there was never a stranger in any given room where my dad was there that left as a stranger! There is no doubt in my mind that my daddy would have been proud of my two girls and of me for going out and starting a flower company with the whole intention being to Plant some Joy with flowers. We chose Do it Yourself Bouquets because we wanted to interact with these people who were perhaps experiencing some joy for themselves or taking a little joy to someone else because of our flowers.
Our company, all three of us making up Plant Joy & Co, have roots (See Kelsey pic below) that are planted deep in Joy and it's really no wonder our whole purpose is to share that joy! My girls and I have experienced the true meaning of joy as we navigate through the company's journey to this point and in life in general: Joy is a feeling of good pleasure and happiness that is dependent on who Jesus is rather than on who we are or what is happening around us. Joy is a choice. Joy can be planted! and can be your root in all circumstances.
If you have read this in it's entirety I'd like to invite you, firstly, to our semi-private first anniversary-Valentine event at my home on Sunday, Feb 13 at 11-1, open house style. Please message me for my address if you do not have it. Secondly, I'd like to invite you to my church, Gracelife Chapel in Pevely, MO. Message me if you'd like me to sit with you! There is nothing I'd like better than to have you experience true joy, and you can't do that without having found Jesus- he's looking for you now and wants to include you in his kingdom.
Happy Valentine's Day
and may the Love of Christ
meet you wherever you are!
Kathy
