A Dream Realized
Exciting things are happening here over at The Wild Paduanos! We recently stepped out of that dreaded comfort zone and took some huge steps toward our dream. I wish I could say that we finally purchased our dream land, but we aren’t quite there yet. Hopefully sooner rather than later!
So what was the outside our comfort zone thing? Well, on a bit of an “I can do this” whim, I signed us up for our first farmers market! We have had three so far and it has been absolutely AH-MAZING!!! On the first day, I almost let the fear gremlins get to me, and talk me out of it too. I was letting the negative self talk get to me, telling myself it was a stupid idea, that I wasn’t going to sell a single thing, on and on. It was a familiar shame spiral as Brene Brown calls it. I basically told that negative self talk to shove it and with my whole family headed to my first market!
First Market Day
I had planned to keep the kids with me for the whole market day, but Wildchild was way too excited for me and bouncing all over the place. Wildbaby was being a typical toddler and just not having it. They stayed through setting everything up and my Mom whisked them back home not long after that. My Dad stayed through the opening of the market day. I think he was low key trying to make sure I was going to be safe.
The first few hours were slightly slow and I was really worried that my fears were right and I wasn’t going to sell anything. Then, it happened. I sold my first item! It was just a small lip balm, but I excitedly messaged my friends, sisters, and my husband all about it. Actually, I think I messaged them all about the first four sales that day because I was just that excited about it. I ended the day much better than I was hoping (or fearing rather).
What the Future Holds
Does this mean we are going to stop our online sales, or plans to add a shop directly to our website? No! Not at all. We still plan to keep online sales as part of our offerings. It helps out those customers of ours that can’t make it to the market for new products, replacements, etc. The goal is definitely to move away from Etsy and have all The Wild Paduanos offerings under one cohesive umbrella.
The search/yearning for our dream homestead continues. We explored a couple of avenues through beginning arming programs, but were quickly shut down for not already having 3 years of experience. So, we continue to save, create products, expand our market, and all while Aaron works.
We have tossed around the idea of creating a YouTube channel after having some fun over on TikTok. We could share bits of our daily life, more of our thoughts, some shots of the markets, or anything really. Is that something you guys would be interested in? If so, let us know below!
- Barbara
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