My evil plan.

A couple months ago I devised an evil plan... Okay, it's not really evil. Nothing about world domination or starting an apocalypse or anything. There is a candy shop that opened a few months ago in downtown Gresham called "iCandy". It's super cute. They make fresh pop corn (regular, cheese, and caramel) every day and they have a lot of retro-ish candy. After visiting the shop a couple of times, I had a thought: I wonder if I could talk them into selling my cupcakes there someday? 

One problem with my thought: there is already a cupcake shop in downtown Gresham (Bella Cupcake). It went in about 2 years ago, and they seem to be doing pretty good. I didn't actually go in and taste their cupcakes until last summer (I had to check the competition!). They were good, but they had that "mass production" type of cupcake taste them, and not to sound boastful, but my cupcakes definitely have that "yummy, home-made" taste to them; thus, mine are better. ;) 

So, I devised my (non-evil) plan. I would go in every Saturday - buy a couple of chocolates and a bag of popcorn - become familiar and get to know the owners (it's a family who runs it) in hopes that maybe I can approach them about the cupcake idea. I haven't seen Bella Cupcakes interact with iCandy at all (no sharing of business cards or anything), so I think I have a good chance of making a contact with these owners. 

I've been doing this for about eight weeks now. Every time I go in I mention that it's my "Saturday tradition" to get popcorn from their shop... and they always thank me for supporting them and for remembering my "punch card" so I can get a free bag of popcorn when I fill it up (apparently people keep forgetting to bring theirs in)!

Today I went in for my usual caramel marshmallow bar and my bag of caramel corn after wandering through our Farmer's Market. While one of the gals who works there was ringing me up, one of the owners looks up and says "Hey! You came in for your popcorn! You come in every week AND remember your punch card!". 

It's a such small thing - but it made me smile. I am a big supporter of local business - I love shopping at our local Farmer's Market and buying from the local farmers. I love to walk downtown Gresham and go into all the little shops. I prefer to buy my TOMS from "The Glass Butterfly" instead of Nordstrom in the mall. Not only am I supporting this local business, but this has the potential to become a possible business venture someday where they can also support MY local business! 

We'll see what the Lord does with this. :)