The Shoe Doctor

I usually write about jewelry-related subjects, but I think I'm going to stray a little off the beaten jewelry path today and talk about something I'm equally passionate about ...

Customer service, including going the extra mile and excellent work ethic.

I was in visiting with my apartment manager, Heather, about a couple of different items.  While we were chatting, a young woman dropped by to deliver some shoes to Heather.  I thought I recognized the young woman and indeed it was Tanya, who cleans apartments for our building management company, but after she handed me her business card, I realized she also has other talents.

Tanya is also The Shoe Doctor and not only does shoe repair, but also picks up, shines the shoes, and delivers them back to their delighted owner.  She was very personable, professional, and easy to talk with about what she does and in showing me her finished product (the shoes she delivered to Heather). 

Besides knowing how hard she works cleaning apartments and producing sparkling and timely results there, I was really impressed by her work ethic in having a second line of work repairing shoes.  However, what I really liked most of all was that she had figured out a way to not only save people money by repairing shoes, but also by serving up exceptional customer service and savings in time in terms of picking up shoes to be repaired and delivering repaired shoes for free.  I walked away from my chat with her feeling inspired by her example.



So, my thanks to Tanya, The Shoe Doctor, for the inspiration.  If you live in the Portland, Oregon area, give her a call at (503) 329-2274 for her shoe repair services and possibly some inspiration in customer service and work ethic!

Ruby Ale Jewelry

Yup, you heard me right.  We're talking about ruby ale jewelry today.

Let me give you the back story.  I met a group of fabulous friends on Twitter a couple of years ago.  We got along so well online that we started having tweetups and found out that several of us had a love of Ruby Ale made by the McMenamin Brothers here in the Portland and Oregon environs.  We all became just plain old friends, not tweets, and the tweetups turned into meetups at Edgefield (a McMenamin's outlet) and finally the meetups turned into Ruby Council (coined by Nick (Schnik), which is the hashtag label we use on Twitter to organize our gatherings.  Several of us have talked in the past about having badges or tee-shirts or SOMETHING emblazoned with "Ruby Council" to let people know who we are (they certainly hear us when we're together because there's lots of loud laughing and talking).  Ruby Council members decided to get together at another McMenamin's property, Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, yesterday, and I decided to get busy and make badges finally for Ruby Council.

To make the OFFICIAL Ruby Council badges, I traced circles out of black felt and glued those to cut-out circles of bright red paper plates.  After that, red glitter glue and gold glitter glue were used to free-form decorate the badges.  Once the glitter glue was dry, I glued pins to the back and voila Ruby Ale jewelry was born:

I arrived first at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse and sat out on the patio, had a Ruby Ale (natch) and handed each arriving Ruby Council member their badge as they arrived.  Each person pinned their badge on.  One member, who shall remain nameless, started to use it as a coaster, but was quickly reminded by several they needed to be wearing that badge proudly.  Anyhow, my friends and fellow Ruby Council members made my day by enjoying and wearing their new badges.  I wonder if anyone else on Ruby Council is going to come up with other "branded merchandise" for future council meetings?

UPDATE: I won't say which member, but someone on Ruby Council is working on some "branded merchandise" for next Ruby Council.  I love, love, love this because it just adds to the fun.  Remember, next Ruby Council meeting is at the Goose Hollow Inn, date yet to be determined, but I am really looking forward to that (possibly because it's one block away from my house, LOL, but truly it's all about fun and friends).

Nature's Jewelry

Mother Nature has been busy lately festooning herself with her form of jewelry, new leaves, colors, and blooms.  Looks like she added some diamonds to a simple bamboo ensemble above.

Of course, her acumen in color choices is legendary.

And sometimes she likes just a simple splash of green.

The Next Elizabeth Taylor

Saturday, my partner in crime, Cari, and I participated in a really fun benefit craft bazaar for a preschool here in Portland, OR, so there were lots of little folks bouncing around.  The bazaar organizers did a fabulous job of keeping them occupied with an excellent activity table, but they also meandered around to look at the various vendor tables with their moms and grandmoms.  One grandmom came by with her little red-headed sprite who immediately related to my jewelry.  I recognized a sparkly kindred spirit.  As she was getting to leave with her grandmom, her little fingers spidered across and took a necklace and put it in on right over her head.  Her grandmom and I managed to get her to part with it, but later the same little person came back on her own (grandmom was nearby) and still wanted to "borrow" some of the jewelry to wear.  I gently told her no, but that she was welcome to stand with me and look at all the jewelry and even "borrow" some to wear while standing at the table.  She proceeded to go over everything intently and brought many pieces to me to discuss and to wear for a bit.  Her eyes sparkled while the jewelry sparkled.  Little one was able to carry on very articulate conversations and had a great many good questions.  After about one-half hour, she tired and left to find her mom, and her grandmom came back over to chat.  I told her I recognized a sparkly kindred spirit.  Grandmom told me Scarlett, the kindred spirit, had loved sparkly things since birth and even now at two-and-one-half years of age gravitated toward the shiny things in life. 

Scarlett, of course, Scarlett.  Scarlett of the aquamarine earbobs from "Gone With The Wind."  Grandmom agreed that the red-headed sprite and her name were a perfect match.  I laughed and told Grandmom that not only was Scarlett the perfect match, but that they might have a future Elizabeth Taylor on their hands.

We both chuckled about that and about the love of jewelry in general, but then grandmom told me that they hoped Ms. Scarlett would not only love jewelry, but that some day she would end up an engineer.  We agreed that would be very good, but it also left me with the thought how wonderful it is to be two-and-one-half years old and be your very own truly remarkable sparkly self.

My Earring & Necklace set for Portland Circle of Friends & Family Preschool Spring Extravaganza Bazaar Raffle

I've already shared with you the fact that Cari (Wahkeena Photos) and I are participating in this Portland Circle of Friends & Family Preschool Spring Extravaganza Bazaar this coming Saturday, April 30 (9 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4904 SE Hawthorne Boulevard (Eagles Lodge), Portland, Oregon.  I just finished the necklace and earring set I'm contributing to the raffle and thought you might like to see some photos of the finished products.