Immortal Trees Bookshop weekly newsletter: Issue 13

Thursday, July 27

 This week, I'm starting our newsletter with this announcement (YAY!): 

We feel honored to be chosen. So cool. Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We didn't even know we were nominated! :)

"So, you want to publish a book?": TONIGHT July 27

Rebel Holiday Mayhem  

As you know, this last weekend was Christmas in July here in the shop - it was awesome! - and it got me thinking: if we can celebrate Christmas in July, why can't we celebrate other holidays too? Summer boredom sets in really quickly in metro Phoenix - too freakin' hot to even move - so I thought I would share a website/magazine I turned to many summers when Aurora was little: Family Fun Magazine (parents.com).

This free, online magazine is loaded with fun things to do: coloring and 3-D printables, games you can play using an empty cardboard box, crafts using every day items like shaving cream and food coloring...lots and lots of fun free/almost free activities that just take a little effort and imagination.

Take those two things and add one more element: mix up the yearly holiday calendar. Dye Easter eggs, decorate snowmen shapes with tissue paper squares, make each other glittery Valentines (send one to Grandma!), and create little Thanksgiving place setting decorations for each person in your family and save them for November (because you know we don't have time at Thanksgiving to make little feather turkeys). NOTE: also set a reminder on your phone calendar of where you put them so you can remember to actually USE them in November. Or just cook a Jennie O turkey breast in the oven and have Thanksgiving in July.

We shouldn't restrict our crafting by only doing holiday items around that holiday. Break free of the calendar mold! We got you started with Christmas in July. Be a Holiday Rebel: bust out the computer paper and scissors and cut out some dorky snowflakes. Your kids will think you are crazy...AND will think you are the greatest. Make those core memories.

Let us know what you did to be a Holiday Rebel. We love your stories!

P.S. You don't have to have littles in your house or life to do fun kid crafts. Go for it!

Reaching out to our community

We are looking to reach out to more people through newspaper and magazine paid advertising and then hopefully hire a few employees so we can plan more events and programming for our shop. We are asking our community to help us out by spreading the word about our Go Fund Me account. You can read all about our shop and our plan to use the funds at the link below. (I took the previous really long-winded descriptions from previous newsletters out so I could add new stuff to this newsletter.)

Thank you, as always, for supporting us!

Update: Many, many thank yous to everyone who has donated! :) These generous financial gifts are being put in a pot to apply toward paid advertising, hopefully soon when we get enough for contract requirements. Yay!

Editor's last words: Seems like yesterday...

This month marks the one month anniversary of us getting the keys to our shop. It was a long and up/down process to get to that point. The decision to open a bookstore happened way back in February 2021. Aurora was just a junior in high school. Amy was her teacher. :) We knew I wanted to teach until Aurora graduated, so we set our goal to have a place by the following spring. That year from spring 2021-22, we collected books, (cleaned a ton), learned about owning a shop and having a business in Arizona, made decorations, purchased journals and other fun shop items, and dreamed about not ever, ever grading another essay. We were hoping to have keys by February or March for a shop location, but pickings were slim. Covid interfered with construction and construction money, so the places we were hoping were going to be built, weren't. (And several are STILL not built, SE of Verrado and McDowell being one of them.) We feel lucky to have found this space. Many building owners didn't want to take a risk on a bookshop and turned us down. The man who said yes (our property owner) is actually an avid reader, and when I met him and was talking about our story, I complemented him greatly not knowing who he actually was. He was pleased he made the right choice.

We had some challenges when we moved in. The inspector found a handful of things that needed to be fixed because the place had been empty for over a year. We painted the sad gray walls the warm tan you know them to be, ordered bookcases and more bookcases, and brought several truckloads of books we had stored in our garages. It was pretty chaotic in here. I still don't know how we got all of the books and stuff and boxes and decorations all in their places before our opening day party in October. (Mr. Bookstore, Aurora, my dad and mom, her friends, and some of our former students worked, sweat, moved boxes, built shelves, and never complained. We have the best people in our circle.)

So here we are, a year later. I'm sitting on the cow couch, typing this to you, and Amy is behind the register at her desk, filling out checks to our super authors and makers from our Saturday Christmas event. The air is working, the books are trying to be flirty to be taken home by the next customer, and our adorable bistro lights are just doing their jobs being ambiency. (Yep, still making up words.)

I am going to leave you will some photos of what the shop looked like from July to October so you can see what we were doing. Definitely two crazy ladies and a bookshop.

Enjoy our Memory Lane. :)

~ Charity and Amy (and Jack and Toothless)