2024 Recap and Welcoming 2025

As 2024 comes to an end and we move into a new year, I want to recap some of the things I experienced in 2024. There were a couple of significant events this year that shaped my life… the greatest of them was Hurricane Helene. I’ll talk about that in a moment, though. Some highlights were Aiden getting his driver’s license and our market trips for Lilly Pulitzer. We also added two new guardian dogs to our farm, said goodbye to our farm cats (sadly just two months apart), finished the chicken coop renovation, and planted a garden! Geez… this could end up being quite the blog post. LOL!!! I promise to keep it somewhat short and very sweet!!

Early 2024

We started the year off with a visit from my Father, who lives in Greece. My family rented a little cabin near Asheville and Ryan, Aiden, and I spent New Year’s Eve with two of my sisters and my father. We came home after the ball dropped and prepared to host my father for a week at our home. It was great showing him where we live now! January ended with a snowstorm that brought over a foot of snow and things were off to a wonderful start!! February brought about my husband’s 37th birthday and my first Lilly Pulitzer market trip to NYC!! Seeing the Print Studio there was such an incredible experience!! It was nice having my work friends in the city I lived in for 2 years! March brought new opportunities for the store with a wonderful new hire and our Spring collection. Ryan and I did our front garden and planned out our vegetable garden for the year. We also started celebrating the 65th Anniversary of the Lilly Pulitzer brand!! I was on my yoga game and we were in for an exciting year!!

Mid 2024

We continued the year moving into our busy season at the store. We had our first Luxe capsule, which is becoming a permanent fixture in our lines (now called the Reserve Collection). The prints had a vintage feel and the colors have been HUGE, even rolling into the Fall and Winter seasons! We hosted a couple events at the store and Aiden got his license, allowing a little more freedom in my days! We had our market trip in King of Prussia, PA (Lilly HQ) and visited family in NJ for the 4th! Spring turned into Summer and Summer quickly turned into Fall and things were going very well!! We were pretty much neck and neck with our previous year’s business and life was great!! We saw our annual visitors during their camp sessions and friends we’ve made over the years!

Fall 2024

Fast forward to late Summer and school started back. Things got a little quiet, but for just a week or two. The beginning of September brought the Sunshine Sale and in the taper down of that, a storm was developing that would later bring one of the worst storms Western North Carolina has ever seen. Hurricane Helene rolled through Asheville after a stalled storm front dumped so much rain that it caused a flash flood. We knew we would need to be extra prepared for what was coming and fortunately, we decided to remove our product from the store ahead of Helene’s arrival.

Hurricane Helene

When Helene hit the Asheville area, many feet of water caused our main rivers to flood and the area my store is located was completely underwater. The shock of the event still hasn’t settled, but I have seen a community come together to help one another during one of its most devastating times. I have seen kids volunteering to serve at one of the biggest distribution sites in the county we live in and go every single day from 9am to 6pm to help our community. The love I feel for the company I work for has grown exponentially from everything I have seen and experienced during clean up and our rebuilding. Everyone was out getting things done and helping everywhere they could. In the wake of the storm, we were strong and were there for others.

Rebuilding and the End of 2024

As we near the end of this year, we have started the rebuilding phase of reopening. It has been nearly 3 months since the storm came through and there is still much devastation in our area. The recovery will take years to complete and the topography of our area is completely different. I have learned so much in the last 3 months and have grown as a human, manager, friend, mother, spouse, and every other title you can think of. Grace under fire might be the greatest thing I’ve learned and I also decided that my happiness and peace are very important. Rolling into 2025, my word for the year is Happiness. My goal is to spend time every morning thinking through happiness and what it looks like for me that day. Then, I am going to spend my day making sure I do things that bring that happiness to my life.