Kristine: 0:07

Hey, I'm Kristine.

Carrie: 0:09

And I'm Carrie. And

Kristine: 0:10

we're best friends

Carrie: 0:11

and we have a podcast. Welcome to episode two of our two Babes podcast.

Kristine: 0:16

What a thrill.

Carrie: 0:17

What a thrill.

Kristine: 0:18

Can you believe that we're actually like we finally started,

Carrie: 0:21

no.

Kristine: 0:21

And we're actually into episode two.

Carrie: 0:24

No, I can't believe it, to be honest with you.

Kristine: 0:26

Like that's something I didn't know if we were ever gonna be able to say

Carrie: 0:29

Nope.

Kristine: 0:30

So this is exciting. So welcome,

Carrie: 0:32

welcome,

Kristine: 0:32

and if you listen to the first one. Thanks for coming back.

Carrie: 0:36

Yeah, we honestly

Kristine: 0:37

standing ovation. That's for you. That's for you guys. Those buttons are gonna, like, they're gonna end up coming off the machine. I feel like we're gonna press it so often.

Carrie: 0:49

Oh, absolutely. And I'm glad I know where the applause is now.

Kristine: 0:51

That's awesome.

Carrie: 0:51

I know where the laughter is too, I think.

Kristine: 0:53

I'm glad that you can reach it. Cause I can't. So that's awesome.

Carrie: 0:55

I'll, I'll be in charge. So this week we're gonna, uh, talk about, Our business.

Kristine: 1:00

Yeah. So we kind of gave like snippets of like who we are mm-hmm. And like what we do ish. Mm-hmm. Um, and the, we told you guys that were best friends and we have a business. We didn't actually dive in

Carrie: 1:11

No.

Kristine: 1:12

To that. Um, at all. Just a little minor details. So, uh, we're gonna do the whole thing. We're gonna tell you guys

Carrie: 1:19

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:19

What we actually do, how we started it, and just kind of go back in time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Time warp.

Carrie: 1:27

Yeah. Well, time warp. Which I'm really excited about.

Kristine: 1:29

Yeah. So let's, uh, let's start, let's do that, shall we?

Carrie: 1:32

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:33

Oh no. We're gonna start off with our favorite, uh, what we're reading or what we're watching right now. Me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, love that for us.

Carrie: 1:39

I like how you saw my face and you're like, like,

Kristine: 1:41

no, no. Kristine. Do not follow

Carrie: 1:45

the, follow the rules. Kristine.

Kristine: 1:48

I'm a real breaker baby. Okay. What are you currently, um, reading or watching?

Carrie: 1:53

Okay. Well, I already talked about what I'm reading, uh, the house made, but I can absolutely talk about what I'm watching.

Kristine: 1:59

Yeah.

Carrie: 1:59

Um, I'm watching Grey's right now.

Kristine: 2:00

Yes. Good.

Carrie: 2:01

So, I mean, grace has been on for, what are we on season 18 or something right now? Something like that. I used to watch it religiously when it was on. I used to watch it on tv, you know.

Kristine: 2:13

Oh, on the tube?

Carrie: 2:13

On the, on the television 18 years ago. Cuz you couldn't just watch stuff on Netflix back then, and, Then I kind of fell off.

Kristine: 2:22

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 2:22

Watching it. And I've tried to, I've tried to get back on so many times that this time I was hellbent and determined to watch all 18 seasons and be current with it.

Kristine: 2:30

Yeah.

Carrie: 2:30

So I'm on season 15 right now. So good. I've been watching it for a while. Like it's, I can't just lay in bed and binge watch for hours and hours and hours a day right now. So

Kristine: 2:39

it's hard to do that. It is when I do get the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Carrie: 2:43

Oh, it's so nice. Yeah. So that's what I'm watching right now, and then I told you about the movie I watched this weekend.

Kristine: 2:48

Yeah.

Carrie: 2:48

I want you to watch it so we can talk about it on the, the episode, but it's called The Best of the Best of Us. Is that what I said? The best of me. The best of us. I'll Google it.

Kristine: 2:58

I'm gonna need your Google machine too, cuz I can't remember what the show is that I, I know what it is. I just can't remember what it's called.

Carrie: 3:04

Oh, okay.

Kristine: 3:04

So I'll have to Google it.

Carrie: 3:06

Yeah,

Kristine: 3:06

real fast.

Carrie: 3:07

The best of me. Oh my gosh, this is already bad. Oh, okay. It's called the Best of Me. Okay. It's a Nicholas Sparks book and it was turned into a movie. It's old, it's from 2014,

Kristine: 3:18

which is wild.

Carrie: 3:19

But I watched it this weekend and it was freaking fantastic. Thank you. Um, if you are gonna watch it like. Be prepared to cry, but I mean, it's Nicholas Sparks, so I feel like I didn't have to preface that, but it was amazing. My mom was like, what do you mean you've never seen that? And I'm, I was shook that. I've never watched it because I love the lucky one. I love all the Nicholas Sparks movies and I can't believe I'd never seen it. So I watched it this weekend and I'm pushing Kristine to watch it so that she can talk about it. I'm gonna watch it. Yeah, probably. I don't know, maybe Tuesday, Tuesday night or something. You'll kick when Jayce is at basketball. Oh, yeah. He does have basketball this weekend or this week. That's right. That works perfect. Yeah. Tuesday it is. Okay. I'm gonna get me some popcorn. Yeah. And take all your makeup off first.

Krisitne: 4:04

Yes. Yeah, good. I am currently watching, um, I haven't started a new book yet, so we're gonna talk about what I'm watching. I'm watching the. The King of Collectibles, the Golden Touch, I believe is what it's called with Ken Golden. He runs, he has this business and he finds extremely collectible items like, um, like a Babe Ruth jersey or um, uh, Michael Jordan. Um, Floor pieces, autograph floor pieces, and just like really rare fines. And, um, it is very thrilling. So Carrie knows, but like my husband collects a lot. Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of baseball cards and hockey cards, um, basketball cards, all that good stuff. He collects shoes and other things. But this is all about like really high prices, like millions and millions. Mm-hmm. And millions dollars worth of items. And, uh, he just did a box or a case opening with Drake. Oh yeah. And was looking for the LeBron three man patch card. So what that is, is like on the bottom of the jersey, there's a little man, the little NBA symbol, um, patch from the jersey. And it's from three. Game Warren LeBron jerseys and it's on a card and it is like millions of dollars. Like it is a pricey card. And so he did this case opening with Drake, hoping that they were gonna get the this card and they didn't. But um, so it's still out there. Mm-hmm. Which really thrills me cuz my husband likes to collect mm-hmm. Cards and, uh, be really thrilling if you found something like that. But yeah, so I'm currently watching that. If you're into collectibles, I highly recommend it. It's,

Carrie: 5:50

I love the stuff you watch.

Kristine: 5:53

I love documentaries. I love like, I don't know, stuff like that. I guess true crime. True crime. Love all that. I like the people. Mm-hmm. Like, um, I'm a killer as a show on Netflix. Yeah, that one's really cool. I love shows like that, but the collectible one right now is like really enticing. Yeah. It, it just, Collecting is like, it's a gamble, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I, I like that. I think it's really cool. But yeah, so that's what I, what I'm currently watching. I love that. Weird, I'm secretly 99 years old and I sit in my special chair and watch my shows about collectibles.

Carrie: 6:34

Kristine and I, it's so funny because we are so similar in so many ways, but there's way, there's things that we are, could not be more different. Yeah. And. I love that. Yeah. I love that. For us, so like,

Kristine: 6:45

yeah, just like the shows. I watch a lot of documentaries. Mm-hmm. Where you don't, not really, no,

Carrie: 6:51

it's not really my jam.

Kristine: 6:52

I love, like, the real stories of people, although real life things actually scare the crap out of me. Yes, they do. Like I don't even wanna get into current events that are terrifying me. Yeah. Yeah. But watching them. Years later, not the movie about it. Mm-hmm. But watching the actual documentary of that i e like the Boston Marathon. I just watched that one. Yeah, yeah. That was watching, that was, I was totally like, wrapped up in it. Mm-hmm. Um, especially as a runner, it's, you know, um, hit home a little bit, but it was just wild. Like, I love watching those, but I can't Yeah. In the current.

Carrie: 7:30

Yeah. Nor do you like movies about the end of the world? No. Where I do

Kristine: 7:34

mm-hmm. Could you hear me drink? That was awful. Could

7:38

hear

Carrie: 7:39

that in my headphones. I know. Forgot. I, I love movies like the day after tomorrow or Dante's Peak. No, that's not into the world. But it wasn't natural disaster.

Kristine: 7:49

It is natural disaster. That's the end of my world. If we put on, what was that movie? Just the trailer. The day after tomorrow. Day after tomorrow. Okay. It's one of my paves. Yeah. She just put on the trailer for me and I don't even think, like, I think the trailer was like two, three minutes long. Mm-hmm. I don't even think I got admitted in No. Before I

Carrie: 8:06

panicked. It sounds like Dennis Quen in. I think I love Dennis Quaid.

Kristine: 8:09

Yeah. Love him. Well, not his movie the

Carrie: 8:12

day after tomorrow. No. So I love that that's, you know, yeah. I love that we have things that make us different. Yeah,

Kristine: 8:19

me too. It's fun. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What else? What are we here for?

Carrie: 8:24

We're here to talk about a movie. Yeah.

Kristine: 8:25

Oh yeah. So we were talking about like our, what we're currently watching. Yeah. I love that we go off and these tangents why we're even

Carrie: 8:31

here. Forget why we're here. We really need to write notes.

Kristine: 8:34

Okay. So l v. So if you don't know l v is actually short for Lavender and Lace Boutique. Um, Carrie and I have been in business for almost eight years. Yes. And we're gonna dive into what it actually is here in a sec. But it's been eight years of business together. Mm-hmm. Two best friends who are still. Best friends. We still

Carrie: 8:57

are best friends, even through owning a business together for eight years. And

Kristine: 9:00

that is a very special thing because that I think so too. You know, a lot of people probably wanna punch each other out, but we haven't yet. No, I've thought about it, but yeah. Totes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Give you a little boot down the stairs. Yeah, yeah,

Carrie: 9:13

yeah, yeah. Sometimes we're walking down the stairs. I'm like, it'd be fun to push you a little bit. Yeah. Booby chop

Kristine: 9:17

this place.

Carrie: 9:19

But no, it's, no, no. On the grand scheme of. Of it all. No, no. I don't wanna tell you anything. No, no, no. Yeah. So

Kristine: 9:29

we are, uh, we have a business care. Why don't you, uh, why don't you tell'em what the heck we do? What

Carrie: 9:34

l b is? Yeah. Okay. What the freaking are we doing here? Yeah, so we're an online women's clothing boutique. Um, like Kristine said, we've been in business for almost eight years. We sell, I mean, I'm gonna say it again. We sell women's clothing. I just said that. What did we sell? Um, women's clothing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Accessory shoes. And we started as online only. And a year and a half ago we actually opened a storefront, which is wild. Never thought we'd do that. Yep. Um, we represent sizes extra small to three x primarily. We've been dabbling in four x and five x, which was something we always wanted to do. It's just finding the vendors that make clothing in those sizes, so that's pretty exciting. And, and that's what we do. Yeah. So

Kristine: 10:17

we started, we said this already eight years ago, but how we actually got started Yeah. Is a story. And it itself, it is a, it is a big story. So let's, let's jump back in time here. So, okay. Eight years ago, Carrie just had her daughter.

Carrie: 10:34

Yeah. So I did. I she is, well, she's gonna almost be nine. Yeah.

Kristine: 10:40

So Carrie was, uh, Very frustrated with online shopping when her daughter was born. Mm-hmm. And she was a very colicky baby. Yeah. My and her old I'll, she'll give you the whole story there.

Carrie: 10:52

I'll give you the, I'll give you my spiel.

Kristine: 10:53

Yeah. Dive in.

Carrie: 10:54

Okay. So Brooke was very colicky like Kristine said. Um, she cried pretty much for six months solid. And it was awful and so, so hard on me and I was so blessed to have a baby. I. Because I mentioned last episode, it took us a while to actually have a baby, but honestly, it was so isolating and I spent so much time in my home because I was so scared to leave because I was always on edge. I always thought, oh my gosh, she's gonna start crying the second we go to the mall, or the second we go visit a friend or go for lunch. So I didn't really do much outside the house for the first six or seven months of her life, and. I had kind of lost my identity. I had always been someone that worked in an office for years, and that's pretty much all I had. I had casual clothes and then I had office clothes. But I was starting to feel really frumpy. My body had changed, obviously, from having a baby and nothing that I had that was cute and fun fit me anymore.

Kristine: 11:56

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 11:57

So I was living in Leggings or pajamas, and I just wanted to find a wardrobe for myself that made me feel good and I couldn't find anything. I couldn't, there was nothing online that represented my style or that was Canadian. So I found this boutique, they actually still exist. I think it's called Modern. They're in the states modern something.

Kristine: 12:23

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 12:24

And. They had this cardigan that I wanted so bad. The cardigan?

Kristine: 12:30

Yeah.

Carrie: 12:30

It was an Aztec print cardigan. It was pink and I wanted it so badly and it was sold out. So I went on their Facebook page and I found where they said, um, this is restocking next Thursday. So next Thursday, rolled around. I just like randomly went on their website and it was already sold out again.

Kristine: 12:50

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 12:50

And I went and read the comments on the post and everyone's like, oh my God, that sold out in a minute. And I was like, oh, I had no idea that I, I didn't know I was buying concert tickets. I didn't know I had to be on this quickly.

Kristine: 12:59

Right.

Carrie: 13:00

And I remember thinking to myself, huh, this is like, this is a thing like this. Neat. And we didn't have anything like it in Canada. Um, now that we've been in business for a while, I know that there's boutiques like Sweet Jolie.

Kristine: 13:15

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 13:16

Um, other boutiques around that. Were in business at the time or had kind of just started their business around the same time. But I, I really didn't know of many. I kept finding stuff in the US and it would take weeks to ship and you'd have to pay duty. And I thought this, this could potentially be something.

Kristine: 13:33

Yeah. Like this is a thing.

Carrie: 13:34

this could be a business idea. Yeah. And one night I was over at Kristine's, we were having wine cuz

Kristine: 13:40

Shocking.

Carrie: 13:42

Colicky baby and. I think we're, we're all of us there, Brooke and our husbands?

Kristine: 13:47

I think so.

Carrie: 13:48

I think so too. And I remember saying to Kristine, so I have this idea,

Kristine: 13:52

yeah.

Carrie: 13:53

She had been on the saga of the Aztec cardigan with me. She knew

Kristine: 13:56

Yeah.

Carrie: 13:56

About it. And I said, do you, do you want to form an alliance with me? I did. I said, do you wanna start an online boutique with me?

Kristine: 14:04

And I said yes. Like instantly it wasn't even a thought. I was like, yeah, I do, I want to try this.

Carrie: 14:08

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 14:09

Like, yeah, like I saw you trying to get this cardigan. I,

Carrie: 14:13

yeah,

Kristine: 14:13

I see what this is about. Okay. Let's give it a try.

Carrie: 14:16

Yeah. And our husbands instantly were like,

Kristine: 14:18

yeah, Ok girls.

Carrie: 14:19

This is Dumb

Kristine: 14:20

Yeah, you idiots.

Carrie: 14:22

So supportive. Um, but they just didn't, I guess they didn't see it. And I mean, for the longest time, I can understand why

Kristine: 14:30

totally.

Carrie: 14:30

It totally seemed like this random thought out of nowhere, which. Okay. It was, but

Kristine: 14:37

yeah, it, it was, but it, it wasn't all at the same time.

Carrie: 14:41

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 14:41

Like it was, I feel like as guys, they don't see

Carrie: 14:45

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 14:46

How hard shopping is for women's.

Carrie: 14:48

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 14:48

I know that some guys, and a lot of guys have hard time shopping, but for women especially after they're having a baby.

Carrie: 14:54

Yes.

Kristine: 14:54

Um, and with our consistent. Bodies changing.

Carrie: 14:59

Yes.

Kristine: 14:59

Before, during, after babies. It is so hard to actually feel good in the piece. So they didn't know?

Carrie: 15:06

No,

Kristine: 15:07

they didn't get it.

Carrie: 15:07

No. No.

Kristine: 15:09

And you know, like, so I understand the chuckling from them and I understand the hesitation. Um, you know, but I, I also, they just didn't get it.

Carrie: 15:18

No, they did it.

Kristine: 15:19

They just didn't get it.

Carrie: 15:20

And we, we knew we were, we were ready. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I never expected this

Kristine: 15:26

No.

Carrie: 15:27

That night.

Kristine: 15:28

Oh God no.

Carrie: 15:29

No. Oh God no. No. I thought we were just gonna have this cute little business in my basement.

Kristine: 15:34

Yeah. I thought we were probably gonna have a side gig. Yeah. While are just raising our kids.

Carrie: 15:39

Yeah. I, I thought I was gonna have a full-time job and this.

Kristine: 15:42

Could you imagine?

Carrie: 15:43

No. Hell no. No. I tried it for a while. It was rough.

Kristine: 15:46

Yep.

Carrie: 15:47

Yeah, so then we kinda hit the ground running.

Kristine: 15:49

Yeah. So, yeah, we jumped into a bunch of research and tried to figure that out.

Carrie: 15:52

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 15:52

And tried to come up with names. It didn't end well.

Carrie: 15:57

No. We ended up with Lavender Lace boutique, but that's fine. Yeah. We have, we have thoughts on that, like we mm-hmm.

Kristine: 16:04

Don't get us wrong. Like it's a good name. We just, uh, we wish we we could have gone back in time.

Carrie: 16:09

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 16:09

And put a little bit more of Kristine and Carrie into it.

Carrie: 16:13

Absolutely.

Kristine: 16:14

Because we were very, um, we just needed a name.

Carrie: 16:17

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 16:18

And we were kind of, We didn't have creativity and we were done with the braining and we needed a name. So we phoned a friend.

Carrie: 16:27

We did, we did phone a friend, and she came up with the name and it's,

Kristine: 16:29

it's Clutch likes. It's great.

Carrie: 16:31

It's great. And I'm very thankful. But maybe if I knew our business was gonna be as big as it is, I maybe would've. And we didn't tell one more time. Oh, I had no idea. And I, yeah,

Kristine: 16:42

I wish it definitely had,

Carrie: 16:44

more of our flare.

Kristine: 16:44

Oh yeah. Kristine and Carrie in it.

Carrie: 16:46

Yeah.

Kristine: 16:47

Like we literally had nothing to do with the name.

Carrie: 16:49

No.

Kristine: 16:49

And that, and that part, that doesn't irk me. That's not the right word, but it

Carrie: 16:53

No,

Kristine: 16:55

it we're missing something out of it.

Carrie: 16:56

Yeah. But that's okay.

Kristine: 16:58

I hope we explained that. Okay,

Carrie: 16:59

now we have two babies and a bad idea.

Kristine: 17:01

Yes.

Carrie: 17:01

You know,

Kristine: 17:02

that makes sense.

Carrie: 17:03

Makes sense. Yeah.

Kristine: 17:04

Yeah.

Carrie: 17:05

So we kind of hit the ground running. Honestly.

Kristine: 17:08

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 17:08

And I had started a couple businesses or helped my husband start his business, so I kind of knew those steps. So that part was easy. The rest was not,

Kristine: 17:18

no, we had no idea what the hell we were doing.

Carrie: 17:19

No freaking clue.

Kristine: 17:20

Honestly, we still don't really,

Carrie: 17:21

no, no clue. But we really had no clue then.

Kristine: 17:24

No. Yeah. So we did a bunch of research.

Carrie: 17:27

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 17:27

Um, thank god Carrie did have a little bit of a background in. Starting a business, we knew kind of where to go and

Carrie: 17:33

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 17:33

What licenses we needed.

Carrie: 17:34

Yeah.

Kristine: 17:35

And et cetera, et cetera. Um, but we didn't know. Where to get stuff.

Carrie: 17:40

No,

Kristine: 17:40

we didn't know how, how to make

Carrie: 17:41

it import into Canada.

Kristine: 17:43

Oh, that's still, that's still a bitch.

Carrie: 17:45

It is. It's still the hardest part of your job.

Kristine: 17:48

Yep. I hate it.

Carrie: 17:50

But it's yours.

Kristine: 17:52

It's my baby uh, we didn't know how to make a freaking website.

Carrie: 18:00

No,

Kristine: 18:01

we

Carrie: 18:02

didn't know much about social media.

Kristine: 18:04

No,

Carrie: 18:04

no,

Kristine: 18:04

I should, I bring up the minion on Instagram, so if you scroll back far enough, I think it's still there. It is. If you scroll back far enough, and I'm talking eight years ago, you are gonna find yourself in a minion on Friday the 13th. He's wearing like a, who's that scary guy? Freddy? Mm. Michael.

Carrie: 18:26

Michael, maybe

Kristine: 18:28

he's wearing a mask. Yeah, he like a knife in his hand. Mm-hmm. And it's like, happy Friday. I thought there's a freaking minion. I'm still, I'm mortified, but he's still there

Carrie: 18:37

because we didn't make our own graphics back then. We just used stuff we found on the internet.

Kristine: 18:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Carrie: 18:41

Yeah.

Kristine: 18:42

And then it rolled into the ones that we made and like,

Carrie: 18:45

oh, that was, yeah.

Kristine: 18:47

And those weren't pretty either. Those were, those were something else.

Carrie: 18:50

And the craziest thing, I mean, we're

Kristine: 18:53

now, they're pretty,

Carrie: 18:53

yeah, we're gonna get back into like our story, but when we used to launch clothes.

Kristine: 18:59

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 18:59

Like we would just launch things when we had time to put them on the website.

Kristine: 19:03

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 19:04

There was no schedule.

Kristine: 19:05

Nope.

Carrie: 19:05

It was just random.

Kristine: 19:06

Yeah.

Carrie: 19:06

We would just throw them up there. Maybe we'd do a post, maybe we wouldn't.

Kristine: 19:10

Yep.

Carrie: 19:10

Because I used to do a lot of our posts.

Kristine: 19:12

Yep.

Carrie: 19:12

At the beginning of, I did all of our posts, I think.

Kristine: 19:14

Yeah. I think, and then I think so.

Carrie: 19:15

And then eventually I passed it on to you.

Kristine: 19:17

Yeah. I think so. And even before then. Oh, we'll get into that story too. I was gonna say like about how we did shopping appointments and stuff.

Carrie: 19:25

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 19:26

But yeah, so we did, we didn't know what we were doing.

Carrie: 19:29

No,

Kristine: 19:29

we really didn't.

Carrie: 19:29

We really had no idea.

Kristine: 19:31

Yeah.

Carrie: 19:31

And then we l we didn't launch our website, but we received our inventory.

Kristine: 19:37

Yeah.

Carrie: 19:38

And then you were here cuz I was on holidays when our inventory came.

Kristine: 19:44

Is that so?

Carrie: 19:44

Yeah. Yeah, you unboxed that feather stuff. Oh,

Kristine: 19:48

I did over.

Carrie: 19:48

FaceTime did.

Kristine: 19:49

Oh, that's right. I did. That was in your kitchen though, right? So I did. In your kitchen?

Carrie: 19:53

No, I think you were in yours.

Kristine: 19:56

Maybe. I can't remember.

Carrie: 19:57

At your kitchen table, did you have a table in that house? Like a little one over by the railing or no?

Kristine: 20:04

No.

Carrie: 20:04

Didn't you have the,

Kristine: 20:05

which house? The first street?

Carrie: 20:06

Yeah. Didn't you have the, the table you have now there? Because it was from your Bonnyville

Kristine: 20:12

oh, yeah, that's right.

Carrie: 20:13

It was over there,

Kristine: 20:14

yeah. Okay.

Carrie: 20:14

And you opened the boxes there.

Kristine: 20:15

Oh, wow.

Carrie: 20:16

I don't, because there's a picture, one of our old Instagram photos is you put all the boxes on top of your, uh,

Kristine: 20:21

that's right.

Carrie: 20:21

The dresser that used to be at your front door.

Kristine: 20:23

That's right.

Carrie: 20:24

The one you guys took apart and you were gonna refurbish.

Kristine: 20:27

Yeah. That didn't happen. No. Um, that's right. I forgot about that.

Carrie: 20:29

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 20:30

That's right. Okay. Yeah. So we got all of the stuff and then that, um, when we got that box or those boxes, um, we weren't, we didn't have a website yet.

Carrie: 20:41

No.

Kristine: 20:42

So I actually took photos of those pieces

Carrie: 20:46

on the floor.

Kristine: 20:46

On the floor, flat selfie or something flat. The ugliest flat lays you'll ever come across on the internet. Like I'm mortified those existed. Um, so I took photos of those and then I just posted it on Facebook and said, Hey, I'm in Sherwood Park. If you're in Edmonton or whatever area, I'll come drive around the city and you can buy it outta the back of my car.

Carrie: 21:07

Yeah,

Kristine: 21:07

So I literally put this stuff in the back of my car. Had a little tiny invoice book,

Carrie: 21:13

which we still have

Kristine: 21:14

met people.

Carrie: 21:14

We almost got rid of it, but we kept it.

Kristine: 21:16

Met people in school parking lots, opened my trunk and people bought the things out of there, and I drove around. Areas in Edmonton, like Mill Woods.

Carrie: 21:26

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 21:26

Met people at their houses, got them to try it on.

Carrie: 21:30

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 21:30

And wrote their little invoice and sold things out of the back of my car.

Carrie: 21:36

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 21:36

And then when I was traveling through Bonnyville Cold Lake area, I would bring stuff with me

Carrie: 21:41

Yeah.

Kristine: 21:41

And sell it.

Carrie: 21:42

Yeah.

Kristine: 21:42

Out of my car.

Carrie: 21:44

Yeah. We were literally selling things out of the back of your car.

Kristine: 21:46

Yeah. That was one of the my favorite memories.

Carrie: 21:48

Yeah. And then when I got home from that holiday, we had a ton of boxes. And we opened them all.

Kristine: 21:56

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 21:56

And then we had the fish tops.

Kristine: 21:59

Oh, gross.

Carrie: 22:00

Yeah.

Kristine: 22:01

Gross. Okay. So let's, let's explain what that means.

Carrie: 22:04

Yeah. So we had a bunch of tops and I understand now What the smell was, but back then I had no idea. So when they do screen printing, I guess the ink can have an odor. And it can smell a little bit like, like fish. Like fish market. Yeah. And we had these tops, they said wifey on them. They were like an off the shoulder top and they stunk. And I remember Kristine and I were freaking out because we're like, first of all, did we order from an unreliable vendor?

Kristine: 22:34

Yeah.

Carrie: 22:34

Cause we had no idea what we we're doing. Were, are these supposed to smell this way? What do we do?

Kristine: 22:39

Yeah.

Carrie: 22:40

We didn't have enough money to order more stuff.

Kristine: 22:43

Exactly. We had like, Small investment into our company.

Carrie: 22:47

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 22:47

And we don't wanna waste that money on fish tops, fish smelling tops. So that was, that was frightening.

Carrie: 22:53

So we actually, we washed them and aired them out. Yep. And then they were fine. Yeah. Because that's what happens. It's common for things to have a little bit of a scent out of. Especially when they got screenprinted

Kristine: 23:04

and when they're sitting in a box. Yeah. That smell is it. It has nowhere where to escape.

Carrie: 23:09

No. Especially I think there were plastic wrapped all

Kristine: 23:11

That's right.

Carrie: 23:11

All six of them or whatever.

Kristine: 23:12

Yeah. So they had no, the air could not escape it. It smelled it is what it is. And we didn't know that's how

Carrie: 23:19

No,

Kristine: 23:19

it worked. No, we had no idea.

Carrie: 23:21

So if we have, if you have an off the shoulder Wipey top, we, we give her an extra love and attention.

Kristine: 23:27

Yeah. There was a story behind that one.

Carrie: 23:28

Mm-hmm. And then we hung it all up in my kitchen. We had three racks in my kitchen and we had leggings in uh, 31 totes.

Kristine: 23:35

That's right.

Carrie: 23:36

And we just, we took pictures and we used to have people come shop in my kitchen.

Kristine: 23:40

Yep.

Carrie: 23:41

Which is bizarre.

Kristine: 23:42

So weird.

Carrie: 23:43

If you knew how much my husband, um, appreciates privacy, you would be shook that. He let us have people come shop in my kitchen.

Kristine: 23:50

Yep. And then that shopping expanded. Into your basement?

Carrie: 23:54

My basement. Yep.

Kristine: 23:55

We, set up a, like a boutique area, uh, with a tryon change room in

Carrie: 24:00

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 24:01

Um, a bedroom. And In your bathroom? Yep.

Carrie: 24:05

And the bedroom came later.

Kristine: 24:07

Yeah. That was later, right? Yeah. It was just in the bathroom for a little while.

Carrie: 24:10

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 24:11

And then we expanded cause we were running out of room.

Carrie: 24:12

Yep.

Kristine: 24:13

And we needed more try on areas.

Carrie: 24:14

Yep.

Kristine: 24:15

So we set up the shopping area and Carrie thankfully had a walkout basement that led right to the street actually was, which was perfect for parking purposes. Um, so we. Uh, posted on Facebook and on our shitty Instagram feed that we had appointments open and you could shop by appointment only.

Carrie: 24:33

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 24:34

And people actually came,

Carrie: 24:35

people actually made appointments and came shopping,

Kristine: 24:36

which was so cool.

Carrie: 24:37

So cool.

Kristine: 24:38

So if you were listening and you did that, like when you were, if you were one of our first customers, thank you

Carrie: 24:44

Yes.

Kristine: 24:45

For doing that because that's, Like, that's kind of not Yeah. Risky, but like that's, you don't know what you're getting into, right?

Carrie: 24:52

No.

Kristine: 24:53

Like we could have had pretty crappy stuff. We didn't, we had great things, but like that.

Carrie: 24:56

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 24:56

You didn't know what you were getting yourself into.

Carrie: 24:58

No. And boutiques weren't as common. Yeah. Then as they are now, boutique shopping was very, it was very niche. It was very new.

Kristine: 25:07

Yeah.

Carrie: 25:07

And you were coming to my basement and I lived out in the country

Kristine: 25:10

and you trusted us.

Carrie: 25:11

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 25:12

Like you trusted that we were gonna have something for you and it, and we did. That's just a

Carrie: 25:17

But you didn't know who we were?

Kristine: 25:18

Nope.

Carrie: 25:18

We didn't have lives. We didn't post pictures. We didn't, yeah,

Kristine: 25:22

we didn't how to do things.

Carrie: 25:24

No,

Kristine: 25:24

we didn't know how to, I worked in retail, but like I didn't work in. Boutique clothing. I worked at Old Navy over Christmas season once and

Carrie: 25:33

yeah,

Kristine: 25:33

I'm pretty sure I got canned.

Carrie: 25:35

I worked at Sport Check for like two days, so yeah,

Kristine: 25:39

I got fired from Old Navy. You worked at Sport Check. We had a good, like, we had a good wrap. Like we

Carrie: 25:44

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 25:45

We knew what we're doing. We had this, so like, thank you for trusting that because

Carrie: 25:48

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 25:49

Without those customers, we wouldn't be here.

Carrie: 25:52

No.

Kristine: 25:53

That was just crazy.

Carrie: 25:54

And then we launched our website. It was November 1st, so we had, you know, or December 1st, sorry. November 1st is our anniversary of our business. Yeah. But December 1st was the date we launched our website and we used the crappiest photos.

Kristine: 26:09

Yeah.

Carrie: 26:09

And our website was just awful.

Kristine: 26:12

We used stock photos for a while, right?

Carrie: 26:14

Yeah, yeah. For a long time.

Kristine: 26:15

Yeah.

Carrie: 26:16

Until we moved into the. Uh, well, we did take you some photos of you against the wall in the bedroom.

Kristine: 26:21

Yeah. And it looked miserable.

Carrie: 26:23

Miserable.

Kristine: 26:23

Everybody commented.

Carrie: 26:24

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 26:25

They're like, can this chick please smile? I'm like, what's wrong with her?

Carrie: 26:28

I thought she was. Yeah.

Kristine: 26:29

I thought I was smiling.

Carrie: 26:31

You weren't.

Kristine: 26:31

I was not going back to them. I'm like, shit. That was a sad, sad individual. Yeah. But I just,

Carrie: 26:36

we had one box. We didn't know what we were doing. We had one box light.

Kristine: 26:39

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 26:39

A shitty iPhone camera. And we did. But we did it. And people bought stuff.

Kristine: 26:43

Yes, yes. It still worked.

Carrie: 26:45

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 26:45

It still worked. Looking back at it now, I wish we could have done a little bit like, you know, I wish I would've smiled, but yeah. At that time we didn't know.

Carrie: 26:52

No,

Kristine: 26:52

we didn't know.

Carrie: 26:53

And so you were a model for a long time.

Kristine: 26:55

Yeah.

Carrie: 26:56

Just you.

Kristine: 26:57

Yep.

Carrie: 26:57

And so we had the boutique in the basement and then we used to do open houses too to come shopping.

Kristine: 27:02

Yeah.

Carrie: 27:03

We'd say, Hey, we're open for two hours, from six to eight on Wednesday, you can come shopping.

Kristine: 27:10

Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 27:10

And we used to have people come.

Kristine: 27:12

Yeah. Yeah. And we had have shopping parties.

Carrie: 27:16

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 27:17

People would come and bring their eight, 10 friends.

Carrie: 27:20

We'd go to their house, please.

Kristine: 27:21

We did go to their houses

Carrie: 27:23

and we had some, some wild ones.

Kristine: 27:26

Yep.

Carrie: 27:27

But yeah, we, we would pack up the whole basement.

Kristine: 27:30

Yeah.

Carrie: 27:30

Into totes in garment bags.

Kristine: 27:33

Yeah.

Carrie: 27:33

Pack up our racks. Thank God I had a big SUV at the time. I had a Yukon. So we had lots of room in the back. Mm-hmm. And we'd pack it all up.

Kristine: 27:40

That took forever.

Carrie: 27:41

We used to do, we also used to do vendor shows.

Kristine: 27:43

Yes.

Carrie: 27:44

So we used to do like the Christmas market at, for Saskatchewan.

Kristine: 27:48

That was our first, very first one.

Carrie: 27:49

No, the first one is the one where we were in the corner. Oh. By the bathroom. We were bathroom directors.

Kristine: 27:54

No, the first, very first, first, first one was, uh, over where that tanning.

Carrie: 27:59

Oh, yeah.

Kristine: 28:00

What? What was that called?

Carrie: 28:01

I don't remember.

Kristine: 28:03

It was over by the kids,

Carrie: 28:04

but outside the preschool?

Kristine: 28:05

Yeah, outside the preschool. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we did a,

Carrie: 28:07

we did that one.

Kristine: 28:08

That was our very first one. I had purple hair then.

Carrie: 28:10

Mm-hmm. But then we did the one where, We

Kristine: 28:14

were bathroom directors.

Carrie: 28:14

We were bathroom directors.

Kristine: 28:15

Yeah. The sip and shop.

Carrie: 28:16

Yeah. We did a sip and shop. And then we used to do the Fort Saskatchewan Christmas market, which honestly was one of our faves. And we used to do teacher's convention Yes. In Edmonton.

Kristine: 28:25

That was hard to pack up. I almost got. Knifed

Carrie: 28:29

You did?

Kristine: 28:29

Yeah.

Carrie: 28:30

In the elevator.

Kristine: 28:30

Okay. So quick story time is probably gonna wonder what I'm talking about. So Carrie dropped me off, I was taking a rack up to the hall and I was in the elevator, by myself, uh, with another gal. She looked around like my age, nothing to be worried about. And, uh, she looked at me. Saw that I had my phone and I think a purse.

Carrie: 28:54

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 28:55

And she took a knife out and she flipped a blade and. I don't know what happened, but as soon as the door opened, I just ripped out of there. Like, for some reason I took the rack, I'm not too sure why I should have just left it.

Carrie: 29:10

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:10

But I took the rack, I remember hitting against the door and like, cuz it hit, you know, it moved back and forth.

Carrie: 29:17

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:17

And uh, and then I ran, I ran out. I was not on the floor. I needed to be, I just got the. Out of there.

Carrie: 29:23

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:23

And a lady saw me and I was starting to cry cuz I was just like, yeah. A lot of emotion. And, uh, she, they, she called security and helped me out and calm me down until I was able to get Carrie.

Carrie: 29:36

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:36

Um, and yeah, so she was known to the area and she's the troublemaker. So I could have been in serious trouble

Carrie: 29:44

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:44

If that, if the doors wouldn't have opened

Carrie: 29:46

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 29:46

When it did and that was. That's Edmonton for you.

Carrie: 29:49

I can't believe that happened. I always forget about that.

Kristine: 29:52

Me too.

Carrie: 29:52

But yeah, we did teacher's convention three years in a row.

Kristine: 29:55

Yeah.

Carrie: 29:56

Um, and a lot of our customers that found us at Teacher's convention still shop with us, which is really cool. We still get asked if we're gonna do it again, which we won't. Just opening that up there. We will never do that again. But it was a lot of work and I mean, worth it. That's how we started to get our name out there. That's how we started to grow.

Kristine: 30:13

Yes. If it wasn't for that, I think that one specifically was the one that really opened. The biggest door for us.

Carrie: 30:19

Yeah. Yeah. We would have people lined up like, like 30, 40 people in line waiting to pay.

Kristine: 30:26

We had to hire friends to come help us.

Carrie: 30:28

Yeah. Andrea did it with us once. Kathleen did it with us once. Yeah. One time it was just us. So I think we did three or four.

Kristine: 30:35

Yeah, something like that,

Carrie: 30:36

or four. And then we didn't do it anymore. And then, um, my husband and I actually sold our house that the boutique was in. We did, we sold our house and so we had to pack up and we stopped having open. That's the last time we did open shopping like that. Yeah. Other than when we used to have warehouse sales.

Kristine: 30:55

Yeah. In the new house. Um, you guys actually built the basement. To fit the boutique?

Carrie: 31:05

No, it was the show home.

Kristine: 31:07

Oh yeah. So that was the show home.

Carrie: 31:08

Yeah.

Kristine: 31:09

And then the next house was built to

Carrie: 31:10

We did, but we never used it.

Kristine: 31:12

Never used it. So yeah, we, we used the basement living area and carries two rooms in the basement.

Carrie: 31:18

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 31:19

As our boutique area.

Carrie: 31:20

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 31:21

Staging areas.

Carrie: 31:22

Yeah. It was small.

Kristine: 31:23

Yeah. Intake area.

Carrie: 31:25

And shipping.

Kristine: 31:26

And shipping area.

Carrie: 31:27

And then we had like a little inventory area. Yeah. And that's when we hired our first employee was when we were in the basement. It was Andrea.

Kristine: 31:34

Yeah. Thank God

Carrie: 31:35

she still, works for us,

Kristine: 31:36

uh, I don't even know if I'm allowed to mention this, but the first thing that we did was ask her if she wanted to drink.

Carrie: 31:42

Yeah. We're like, do you wanna drink with us? And she was like, is this a, is this the trick?

Kristine: 31:46

Yeah.

Carrie: 31:46

We're like, no.

Kristine: 31:47

We're like, no, we're gonna go get the mail. Do you wanna have a drink and go for a walk? She's like, uh, I'm gonna pass on the drink now. She'd say yes now.

Carrie: 31:54

Yes, she absolutely would. So she has her five year work anniversary with us in, June this year. So she's almost worked for us for five years. So we were in business almost three before we hired her. And, uh, thank God we did, we needed the help. So bad.

Kristine: 32:08

So bad.

Carrie: 32:08

So she used to do shipping,

Kristine: 32:09

yeah.

Carrie: 32:10

Primarily. And then she'd help us process inventory. Yep. Andrea's kind of done it all.

Kristine: 32:14

Jack of all trade.

Carrie: 32:15

She is, she's seen every different department. Um, and we were in that basement for probably a year, and then my husband said, Get out.

Kristine: 32:25

Yeah, we, so, why he said get out was because we were getting more and more and more inventory.

Carrie: 32:31

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 32:32

That the boxes. We're now expanding from the basement up the stairs through their hallway, up to the front door. So instead of just like, you know, you're opening your door for your guests and you welcomed them in, you, welcomed them into a warehouse.

Carrie: 32:51

Yeah.

Kristine: 32:52

Is essentially what it look like. And it wasn't, it wasn't good. And like I totally understand his frustration

Carrie: 32:58

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 32:58

With it.

Carrie: 32:59

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 32:59

And glad that he said. G T F O.

Carrie: 33:02

Yeah.

Kristine: 33:02

Because we needed that push too, or else.

Carrie: 33:06

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 33:06

I think it would've stunted our growth.

Carrie: 33:08

Absolutely. Moving to that warehouse was what helped us grow. It was in that basement that we started doing lives.

Kristine: 33:15

Yes.

Carrie: 33:15

And your basement.

Kristine: 33:16

Yes,

Carrie: 33:16

we did them in both. Um, but that's when lives started. It was right around that time as well. We went live one one day. Um, Asking for votes for the boutique awards.

Kristine: 33:28

That's right.

Carrie: 33:29

That was our first live ever, we were sitting on the floor in our shipping room.

Kristine: 33:32

Yeah. Your phone was propped up against a box.

Carrie: 33:35

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 33:36

And I went, I opened the live on my phone to check comments or to make sure that we were live or something. And I remember that my volume was still on loud.

Carrie: 33:46

Yes.

Kristine: 33:46

And you're like, shut it off. And I'm like, oh, I God Panicking, like trying to shut it off. No, it was one of the funniest moments cuz we didn't know what we were doing.

Carrie: 33:53

No. And, and that's when lives started In that basement. And then we started showing product Yeah. On lives.

Kristine: 34:02

Yeah. So our lives we actually try on, and we still do this today and we do that even more. So we try on each and every single piece that we get through our door,

Carrie: 34:12

um mm-hmm.

Kristine: 34:12

Show how it actually fits us, what it looks like. Give real

Carrie: 34:17

mm-hmm.

Kristine: 34:17

Description of it, and and that's how you guys buy things so you have a better description of what the heck you're getting.

Carrie: 34:22

I don't know if you remember this, but we used to not try, even try them on. We would just show'em on hangers. Show'em, yeah.

Kristine: 34:28

Yep. Show them on a hangers and just talk about it briefly.

Carrie: 34:30

Mm-hmm. We'd have one outfit on. But then we'd show stuff. And then people started asking us to try it on, but when we were in the warehouse Yeah. And so we'd start trying them on. And then it became like a full live try on. Yeah. With that. That's how our lives evolved.

Kristine: 34:45

So wild,

Carrie: 34:46

isn't it?

Kristine: 34:47

It's really weird.

Carrie: 34:47

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 34:48

And I love that for us because like, yeah, Now we have this special niche.

Carrie: 34:53

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 34:54

This thing, I don't know, special.

Carrie: 34:55

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 34:56

Thing that we get to offer to our shoppers

Carrie: 34:58

and we go live in, in case you didn't know, maybe you don't follow us. We go live twice a day, Monday to Friday. Mm-hmm. Three times on Monday actually. And we have different bodies ranging from size small, up to three XL trying on our clothes. To show you what it looks like so you can envision it on hopefully your body. And we try to represent as many sizes as we can.

Kristine: 35:23

Yep. And we answer all the questions you have.

Carrie: 35:24

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 35:25

Talk about fit. Sizes. Yep. Prices, yes. Material, everything. Everything you can imagine will answer it.

Carrie: 35:32

Mm-hmm. And we go through it all,

Kristine: 35:34

every single day, baby.

Carrie: 35:36

Yeah,

Kristine: 35:36

yeah. It's a lot of fun. So we didn't used to do that. That wasn't, that's like a, within the years we used to just go, mm-hmm. Live like once, twice a week on Mondays. Yeah. And that was kind of it. And then as we grew and started bringing more and more product mm-hmm. We have to do more. And that's when we started bringing on different types, body types. Yeah. That's cool. I'm happy about that.

Carrie: 35:58

So we moved into our warehouse. We had one bay, it was 1,250 square feet. Yeah. Plus some offices. And I remember thinking, wow, this is so much space.

Kristine: 36:09

We have this picture, this iconic photo of Carrie and I, um, in the warehouse in the Bay, and one of our staff members, Alicia. She took a photo of us from up top, an area that she actually wasn't supposed to be in. I think we hustled in there, right? Like went through that.

Carrie: 36:26

I don't, they were up there yet. I don't think they were had taken over that space yet.

Kristine: 36:29

Yeah.

Carrie: 36:29

So it wasn't ours.

Kristine: 36:31

It wasn't ours. So technically she shouldn't have been up there. She went up anyway. Um, and she took the photo from like above and it looked massive. Mm-hmm. Huge.

Carrie: 36:41

It was huge.

Kristine: 36:43

Guess what guys? It wasn't,

Carrie: 36:44

no,

Kristine: 36:45

We outgrew that space so fast.

Carrie: 36:48

So fast. Within the year. So at that point it was just Andrea, and then we hired Hannah,

Kristine: 36:54

Andrea, and then Alicia. Alicia came on. At that point,

Carrie: 36:56

Alicia was in the basement. She worked kind of like on and off the basement,

Kristine: 37:01

but yeah. Yeah. So she was very, very, very part-time. Helper. And then Yes, Hannah was our

Carrie: 37:07

second employee.

Kristine: 37:07

Second, I think. Yeah. Which seems weird.

Carrie: 37:10

It does.

Kristine: 37:10

We also had Alyssa who was

Carrie: 37:13

um mm-hmm.

Kristine: 37:14

Our helping hand as well. Yeah. She was she was fantastic. So strong.

Carrie: 37:17

So strong,

Kristine: 37:18

so mighty. Yeah. She was so strong. So, yes. And Hannah was our official second employee.

Carrie: 37:24

Yes.

Kristine: 37:25

Yeah.

Carrie: 37:26

Which is so, is so fun.

Kristine: 37:27

So if you know Hannah, now, she's our social media manager. Uh, but then she was our shipper.

Carrie: 37:35

Mm-hmm. She shipped. She was our full-time shipper.

Kristine: 37:38

Ah. And we got, we got lucky with, yeah. With having her, she was a great shipper. Even better social media.

Carrie: 37:45

She's even better at social media. She worked for us for a couple years and then finally she was like, Kay, I need more. I want something else. I love social media. Can we do something? With that, and thank goodness she asked and we said, absolutely.

Kristine: 37:58

Take it and run with it.

Carrie: 37:59

We really needed more help because Kristine at that time was managing our social media alone. Mm-hmm. Um, We can, we'll get into like what we each kind of do. But at that time, Kristine did our social media solely her. Mm-hmm. And I was doing a lot of like website stuff, backend stuff. I pulled, yeah. I used to pull for andrea and Hannah all the time. Wild.

Kristine: 38:20

I know, right?

Carrie: 38:22

Yeah. So we had absolutely outgrown our space and we had to figure out how to, uh, get more.

Kristine: 38:27

Yeah. So we started, we actually, uh, we started looking for whole new warehouse. Mm-hmm. We went and looked at other spaces. It wasn't panning out

Carrie: 38:36

well. And the other issue is we'd signed lease. Because we didn't, we never anticipated

Kristine: 38:41

we signed a five lease.

Carrie: 38:42

We did,

Kristine: 38:43

and we were nine, 10 months into this and we were over literally overflowing. Like we were crawling over boxes.

Carrie: 38:52

Absolutely.

Kristine: 38:52

And it was so, it was so bad. tight. In there for space. That live area we had was this little square on the ground against a concrete wall that. We had to keep clear. It was the only clear area in the entire

Carrie: 39:06

And that's where we took photos too. Cuz it's all we had. Mm-hmm. And we didn't know what we were gonna do. And when we signed that lease, we thought five years we're gonna be fine.

Kristine: 39:15

Oh yeah. We'll make it work baby.

Carrie: 39:17

It hasn't even been five years since that day.

Kristine: 39:19

Yeah. We were, we are not okay with that space.

Carrie: 39:23

No.

Kristine: 39:23

So we looked at other places. Obviously we were in, uh, the lease. So, uh, we actually ended up taking over the bay next door. Uh, we have stories about that bay. Let me, can tell you

Carrie: 39:35

can't wait for that episode to come.

Kristine: 39:36

So, um, Ugh. Yeah, that's a good one. So we ended up taking over that space next door. We ended up putting, there was a, we ended up putting a door in between. Mm-hmm. Um, we didn't wanna do that at first. And then there was a boutique that we follow in the States and I was like, yo, if they can. Bring racks through the hallways of an old school. We can bring a rack through a couple doors. Let's do this. And you're like,

Carrie: 39:58

count, divas,

Kristine: 39:59

go. Yeah. So we're like, okay, let's do it. Let's try it out. So yeah, we did it. We knocked some walls down, we made some doors, we made it work. We made our own photo area.

Carrie: 40:08

Yep.

Kristine: 40:09

Um, and by the way, when I say we, I mean that had nothing to do with Carrie and I. That was Carrie's husband's, uh, company who did the work there, for us, which was great. And, um, So we actually had a whole, I think total it was what, 2,500 square feet?

Carrie: 40:24

2,500 square feet? Yep.

Kristine: 40:26

That didn't last long either.

Carrie: 40:27

No, it lasted about a year. Yep. And we tried everything. We got new racking. Yeah. So we went up with our racking. We double layered everything. We put boxes up on this. We got like, like warehouse racking,

Kristine: 40:42

gorgeous racking.

Carrie: 40:43

Oh, so nice. And we put. Boxes up and we use that racking and we just. I just, I still remember the one moment I remember the most is when we got that big ampersand shipment. And we were sorting it on the floor and it was literally mountains and mountains and mountains of ampersand. And you were like sif, like waiting through it, trying to like move.

Kristine: 41:06

Yeah. There was actually a video of me. I wonder if we can find it. I wonder if we still have it somewhere. Maybe Where I did a snow angel in the ampersand on the ground. Um, and it, there was.

Carrie: 41:16

It was insane.

Kristine: 41:17

Thousands of them on the ground.

Carrie: 41:18

It was insane.

Kristine: 41:18

We did not have the space.

Carrie: 41:20

Nope.

Kristine: 41:20

So there we are. So that's another year later. We were mm-hmm. We ran out the room again. So we needed a new space. And so we did our search again. Yeah. And thank everything that we found this, this building. Yeah. Which is funny enough. Throwing rocks distance. Mm-hmm. From the other warehouse. We are literally across the street, down the corner type of thing. And we found this gorgeous 20 some thousand,

Carrie: 41:48

23,000 square foot,

Kristine: 41:50

square foot warehouse.

Carrie: 41:51

But we didn't get all of it at first.

Kristine: 41:52

No.

Carrie: 41:53

There was actually still people, um, leasing part of it, but we didn't think we needed it. Oh, the story of our lives. Yeah. We're like, oh yeah, we'll be fine with two thirds of the warehouse and, um, A third of the, a third of the office space. Like, we'll be fine. Yeah. And so we took it over. Um, we had to find sub letters for our old warehouse because like we mentioned, we signed a five year lease. Um, and then we moved into this space and we had to completely renovate it. Yeah. Like it was,

Kristine: 42:24

she be ugly.

Carrie: 42:24

It was not good.

Kristine: 42:25

Should we talk about the urinal?

Carrie: 42:27

Oh, there was a urinal, there was a urinal in the warehouse bathroom and it had.

Kristine: 42:33

Boys are gross,

Carrie: 42:34

disgusting.

Kristine: 42:34

They, it had a soccer game in the urinal, so they had to like aim and

Carrie: 42:38

play soccer,

Kristine: 42:40

aim and try to get the ball into the goalie. Like that's disgusting. And it was sitting in there and there was nobody in the space for six, nine months in the warehouse. So that, That sat in a urinal? In the urinal for months.

Carrie: 42:54

It did,

Kristine: 42:55

and I could not take it out. I have a bad, bad gag reflex. I am not that person. Carrie was that person. Feel free to press your button, dude. There was the applause. Carrie took that out.

Carrie: 43:09

Thank you.

Kristine: 43:11

Good job, Carrie. Good job. She had the balls to do it. Mm-hmm. Because, That was disgusting.

Carrie: 43:16

It was disgusting.

Kristine: 43:18

We had some painting. Oh, not some painting. We had,

Carrie: 43:20

we repainted the entire office space.

Kristine: 43:23

Carrie and I painted.

Carrie: 43:24

We did. That was when we discovered we're actually not that bad. Yeah.

Kristine: 43:27

We are actually very good at what we do. Um, so yeah, we did painting, the boys painted, we had carpet to be installed. We did not do that. The whole shebang,

Carrie: 43:36

flooring. The flooring to put flooring down. We did a photo room.

Kristine: 43:39

Yes.

Carrie: 43:40

So the, the current photo room was actually wide open. Um, they had cubicles in there. Yeah. Like, yeah. It was just desk cubicles in there before. So we completely renovated it, turned it into a photo room, a multi-use photo room.

Kristine: 43:53

Mm. Yeah. We have four different stations and then, yeah, so there's, we had like a bedroom area, so we could do like loungey type photos. And then we have our live area and our green wall, which you guys know. Um, it was our famous little wall that we had. Um, and then we had another live area and a selfie area. So many different stations. And thank God cuz that we needed it.

Carrie: 44:12

We really did.

Kristine: 44:12

We needed a designated space, um, which was great. And then what else did we, we this

Carrie: 44:19

Oh, you and I did the cabinets.

Kristine: 44:21

Oh yeah. Carrie. I think we can craft and

Carrie: 44:24

we can't. Yeah. So we wanted to spray paint the cabinets a different color. It did not work out. So then we had to paint them. Yeah. Which worked out way better.

Kristine: 44:33

Way better. Um, but the kitchen now looks really nice, which we never did the fake tile that we were gonna do on the back splash. Never. So, like, honestly, who cares?

Carrie: 44:39

Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Um, yeah, we did that and then we moved in. Yep. Um, we had, we moved in full of staff day, right? Yep. We had a handful of staff. We had, we had Katie, we had Andrea, Sarah, Hannah, and

Kristine: 44:53

we moving day. I forgot my babysitter or my daycare. Yes. Stay home lady had something, an appointment or something. And she's like, um, she calls me, she's like, are you gonna come here?

Carrie: 45:04

That was, that was from the show home. That was from the show home to the warehouse cuz Andrea and I ended up having,

Kristine: 45:09

was it that day?

Carrie: 45:10

Yeah, it wasn't this day. No. Oh. Andrea and I ended up having to ho boxes up the stairs for the whole day. Cuz you couldn't be there.

Kristine: 45:17

Well, I dropped Scarlet off at a different day home.

Carrie: 45:20

Yeah. But by the time you came, we had like done like. Boxes for, oh, it was two hours. That was bad. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 45:25

Let me tell you, I still haven't got better with a calendar. I'm still pretty bad at it.

Carrie: 45:28

Yeah. Well,

Kristine: 45:30

here we are,

Carrie: 45:31

Dixie Chicks

Kristine: 45:31

yeah. Well that's a whole other story you guys.

Carrie: 45:34

Um, but yeah, so we moved in in a day. We set it all up cuz we, we couldn't be down. Like we couldn't have downtime.

Kristine: 45:42

No, because our website was live and we actually had customer shopping.

Carrie: 45:46

Yeah. So we had to, we were still shipping, so we had to have that one day gap and that was it. Because we couldn't afford to take our website down for a day.

Kristine: 45:54

No. Like we, we needed to keep it up.

Carrie: 45:56

Yeah. So we were still doing lives.

Kristine: 45:58

That was chaos?

Carrie: 46:01

It was chaos.

Kristine: 46:02

But we did it.

Carrie: 46:02

We did.

Kristine: 46:03

We Persevered

Carrie: 46:04

and, um, Within a year we had taken over the entire building. Seems to be a theme here. Um, we're now, I wouldn't say we're maxed, but we're very crafty at the space. We have

Kristine: 46:17

very crafty, very crafty at manipulating the spaces to actually work better for us. Mm-hmm. And, um, we're better at getting the product out the door faster, better, faster. Yeah.

Carrie: 46:28

Cycling.

Kristine: 46:29

Cycling.

Carrie: 46:29

We're better at cycling through. Yeah.

Kristine: 46:31

So that's, that was a huge lesson.

Carrie: 46:33

Yes.

Kristine: 46:33

Huge lesson.

Carrie: 46:34

Yep.

Kristine: 46:35

That we didn't know how to do that as well. Like if, if we knew what we did now mm-hmm. Was cycling things out, we probably could have used the spaces that we had previously. A little, A little bit longer. Longer, longer. Yeah. Not too much longer, but longer. No. Um, but yeah, that was a huge lesson that we learned.

Carrie: 46:53

Yeah.

Kristine: 46:54

Definitely.

Carrie: 46:54

Yeah. Yeah. And then about a year and a half ago, maybe almost two years ago, I went and got my nails done and I walked over to a nail appointment and I was walking back and the building next door to us, they were doing some renos on it, and it almost looked like there was gonna be change rooms in there. And I remember thinking to myself, huh, I wonder, I wonder if we should have a store. And so I came into our office and I said to Kristine, I'm like, I have a crazy idea. Like this might be the wackiest idea I've ever had. And you might say, no, but I'm gonna propose it anyways. What do you think about opening a storefront?

Kristine: 47:30

And I said, I don't think that's up crazy. And like we always said, absolutely not.

Carrie: 47:35

Never.

Kristine: 47:36

We said, fuck that. No, that is not happening. And then I said, I don't hate that. And we, I think we were ready for a project. Yeah. Is what we were

Carrie: 47:45

that's exactly it.

Kristine: 47:46

We were ready for a project.

Carrie: 47:47

Kristine and I needed something. Something else.

Kristine: 47:49

We were definitely less hands on.

Carrie: 47:51

Yeah. Cuz something that's happened in the evolution of our business, especially now that we have over 20 staff, which. Is one of my favorite things Ive ever to say Yeah. Is that Kristine and I have gained a little bit more freedom and given ourselves the ability to focus our time and energy on projects within our business that will help grow our business and help make it better.

Kristine: 48:12

Yeah.

Carrie: 48:13

Instead of doing the day-to-day. So at that point we were, I don't wanna say we were board, but we were looking for something different, something new. And so we decided to hit the ground running and do it

Kristine: 48:24

again.

Carrie: 48:25

Yes, we did as a, as we do. I remember when I called my husband Yeah. Because he's our general contractor. And said, What do you think of this? And he was like, oh my God, really? I was like, yeah.

Kristine: 48:38

And the best part of this is we decided to do it at the busiest time humanly possible. Um, we were leading into Black Friday chaos. We were leading into our anniversary chaos. Um, like our Lavender Lace anniversary. Um, the girls just went back to school. Yep. Jayce just quit his job. Yeah. We were just getting into a rhythm and then we decided to blow that up.

Carrie: 49:06

We did, and we blew it up. We really did. And, but we had this, this office space downstairs. Yeah. That was completely empty. We weren't using it. We were paying for it. And we thought, why not use that? And that was our storefront. Yeah. And it was little,

Kristine: 49:23

it was little, but it was functional. Mm-hmm. Until it wasn't,

Carrie: 49:27

wasn't

Kristine: 49:28

Which is the theme theme of today's podcast. Um, and maybe we can give that the title.

Carrie: 49:35

Yeah.

Kristine: 49:36

Shit, we forgot about that. We have actually give this shit a title

Carrie: 49:38

yeah, we do. It was good until it wasn't.

Kristine: 49:41

That's perfect. Um, you should write that down.

Carrie: 49:43

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 49:44

And. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. So then it, we needed more space yet again, because we have such a huge warehouse and such a huge online presence and so many products that we actually bring in, it's nearly impossible, obviously, to put a 20 some thousand square foot warehouse into a

Carrie: 50:05

900 square foot store.

Kristine: 50:06

Exactly. So we needed to expand.

Carrie: 50:09

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 50:10

As we do so we doubled our space. Yet again.

Carrie: 50:13

Yeah.

Kristine: 50:14

We took over the other half of the, offices downstairs and we, we made this huge gorgeous,

Carrie: 50:20

it's amazing,

Kristine: 50:21

stunning, store that we offer so many different pieces now and actually we have the space to offer store exclusives and

Carrie: 50:29

Hillberg Berk

Kristine: 50:30

yes. Oh my gosh. Um,

Carrie: 50:31

that's actually what, Prompted us to expand our store. We. got a call from Sarah one day because Sarah, this was her passion project, was getting Hillberg and Berk in our store, and she called us one day and she was like, I have to tell you what happened. Mm-hmm. She was like, it's happening, like we're getting hillberg. And I looked at Kristine, I was like, our store's not big enough for Hillberg.

Kristine: 50:52

No.

Carrie: 50:52

Because they had mentioned to us that they wanted us to make it a Like a prominent space in our store and like really represent their brand. And I'm like, well, we don't have the space to represent their brand. Yep. We just don't.

Kristine: 51:03

So we knocked down some walls.

Carrie: 51:05

We did, we presented Nick with the, another project and he said, ah,

Kristine: 51:10

literally the guys were like, we just. We just finished this project. Yeah. Like, it hasn't been a year. No. And we, we had to, we had no choice. We, we needed the space for new, for more new things. We needed the space for more. We needed the space to be able to offer those special brands that we wanted. I e like mm-hmm. Matt, Nat. Yeah. And also like, we had to have a sore front for those pieces. Yeah. So we, we needed. We needed that space. We did. And so the guys were on board

Carrie: 51:40

sort of

Kristine: 51:41

after we

Carrie: 51:42

they didn't like our timeline.

Kristine: 51:43

No. Uh, we needed it open for our anniversary.

Carrie: 51:47

Yeah. We wanted it in six weeks.

Kristine: 51:49

And they did it.

Carrie: 51:50

They did. And I don't know how

Kristine: 51:51

it's gorgeous,

Carrie: 51:52

but they did it. Yeah. We. We knew that we couldn't go into November without the storefront done. Yeah, because November's our busiest time of the time of the year. Yes. That we, Christmas and all of that.

Kristine: 52:04

We actually blocked that off. So nobody's allowed to leave. No.

Carrie: 52:07

So they did it. We, we did. We reopened our store on October. No. Into November. Yeah. November,

Kristine: 52:15

October 31st was our original open date. We didn't, didn't it work? Didn't um, so it was like the first November 6th, I think it was November 6th,

Carrie: 52:23

yeah.

Kristine: 52:24

The day that Aaron Carter died. It was, yeah, it was that day. I think it was November 6th.

Carrie: 52:28

So we had this big grand opening. Hillberg and Burke looks amazing in the store. What gorgeous centre piece. Oh. It is, it is like the focal point when you walk in. Yeah, it is absolutely gorgeous. We, the night before our grand opening, Kristine and I were here until like 11 o'clock finishing. We just like, it's one of the coolest things I absolutely love when it's just Kristine and I in the building or in a space and we just like take that second to like really take it in. It's really cool looking at what you've accomplished and being able to be proud of yourself, but like sharing it with someone is. Is the special part Do we have tears in our eyes? Yes. Yes we do.

Kristine: 53:05

So every day goes by so fast here. Mm-hmm. So fast. Um, we have amazing women who work for us and there's just a lot happening all the time. Carrie and I have, you know, our certain live times and we have our daily tasks and like to actually have that time. To look at. Mm-hmm. What we just did. Mm-hmm. In the past eight years. Mm-hmm. Shakes me to the core.

Carrie: 53:29

Yeah.

Kristine: 53:29

Every single time we have this mezzanine in our warehouse and it looks over and it's like my favorite place to be. Mm-hmm. I feel like the Simba moment. Mm-hmm. Like looking out over top of our, whatever they call it,

Carrie: 53:40

pride rock.

Kristine: 53:41

Yeah. Pride rock. And we get to see all of our. All of our success and our hard work. Um, and it's just a really cool place to be. And I love taking that moment in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's, it's really cool with it.

Carrie: 53:53

I love when it's just like, you know, you just, us, the OGs, the actual OGs,

Kristine: 53:57

the real OGs, you know, we need shirts.

Carrie: 54:00

We do

Kristine: 54:01

the real OGs. Mm-hmm. Or the real OGs, please stand up. Mm-hmm. And then it'll be you and I, it's just on the shirt. But yeah. So yeah, it's one of our favorite things. And that's, I think that's, uh, that's how we got here. Did we do it? Did we just tell our whole story? Are we missing anything?

Carrie: 54:18

I don't think so.

Kristine: 54:19

No. Like, and then, so I mean, yeah, after the store we, uh, obviously that passion project was done and then we, uh, we've had this podcast stuff for forever.

Carrie: 54:30

We've wanted to do this for so long. Yeah. Honestly, so, so long. And we knew. We would, yeah, we just, we needed the right time. Last year was when we thought we were gonna do it. It was not the right time. No. We, we were too busy. We were still, last year was wild here. It was the, the year of the ups and downs. Um, after Covid kind of restrictions lifted, it really, we really got so busy and grew so fast again. And the year was like a roller coaster. Yeah. And we just, It was, we didn't time. So this year, early in the year, Kristine and I were talking and one of us, I'm not sure who said, I think this is the time. Yeah. And we set a date. We did not meet it, but

Kristine: 55:17

naturally we never knew

Carrie: 55:18

as we do. And uh, the coolest thing is right now we're recording our podcast and only a handful of people know about it. We have been leading up to this announcement. And it hasn't happened yet.

Kristine: 55:30

No, no. Just. Crazy. Yeah. So we have, uh, we have this secret in the back pocket and when you guys hear it, you guys are gonna know and feel our excitement and what we've been going through mm-hmm. Trying to lead up to this. So yeah, that's where we are right now. We are in our new passion project. We let go of other things that we've had on our tables and our desks.

Carrie: 55:53

We have amazing staff.

Kristine: 55:55

Incredible.

Carrie: 55:56

Like when telling the story of LLB it would be impossible not to mention how amazing our staff is because we wouldn't be here without them. No, we have, I mean, we have Sarah who's worked for us for four years. Yeah. She's our operations manager and she literally like runs the downstairs show.

Kristine: 56:15

We have. The opportunity, and I don't use that lightly, we have the opportunity to pack our bags mm-hmm. And go on a vacation with Carrie, her husband, her daughter, my husband, my daughter, and go on a vacation, get outta here and not worry about our business.

Carrie: 56:35

No.

Kristine: 56:36

And let's talk about how cool and amazing that is.

Carrie: 56:39

It's so amazing

Kristine: 56:40

that we have somebody that we can literally give our eight year old baby and. And let it be. Mm-hmm. And that is one of the most amazing gifts Yep. That we have gotten through LLB. Mm-hmm.

Carrie: 56:56

It really is. Yeah. It's so, it's so amazing and we have such amazing managers. We have amazing staff, but we have such amazing managers that run those departments. And managers of managers like Sarah. Yeah. And we have Hannah who deals with all of our social media. It's just, it's just handled. Yeah. Never once do we have to sit and think, huh. I wonder if there's stories going up on Instagram today, or, I wonder if, you know,

Kristine: 57:22

Carrie texted me the other day yesterday, I don't know, no idea what day it was. She said, Hey, did you know that we have a giveaway going on right now? Uh, and I was like, no. And she was like, that's the best part. Yeah. We don't have to know those things. It's just done. And they, they say like, teamwork makes the dream work. We literally had a dream and we have this team. Mm-hmm. That is making it work. And that is the most magical thing.

Carrie: 57:45

Yeah. It's so cool.

Kristine: 57:48

So kudos to you guys. Yes. To our team,

Carrie: 57:50

to our amazing team.

Kristine: 57:51

I know. I'm sure you guys will be listening cuz you're wondering what the heck we were doing, saying we had meetings. But really Carrie and her just upstairs

Carrie: 57:59

talking to each other,

Kristine: 57:59

talking to each other,

Carrie: 58:00

looking in each other's eyes. longingly me.

Kristine: 58:02

So, so we're actually up here, um, tooting your horns for you guys. Mm-hmm. Cause you guys are the most, you're the real mvp. Coolest people.

Carrie: 58:10

I sitting there just busy cliquey clacking,

Kristine: 58:12

clickety clackety on the old Computers. Mm.

Carrie: 58:15

Yeah.

Kristine: 58:15

So, yeah, that's, uh, the story of LB and i, I hope you guys enjoyed that.

Carrie: 58:20

Honestly, we've wanted, like we've told snippets of our story and we've definitely, um, gone live and talked about it, but to be able to sit down for an hour or however long it's been and tell our story with no interruptions, with no, you know, like we took a couple tangents, but not really, and like really sit down and tell you this story is so cool because. I'm so proud of it. Yeah. I really genuinely am so proud of Kristine and so proud of myself.

Kristine: 58:49

We cry

Carrie: 58:50

and what we've done cause it's so cool. Owning a business is something I wanted to do my entire life. Um, I come from a family of entrepreneurs and I always knew I wanted something, but I didn't know what, and I never imagined it would be with my best friend. Oh my God. And like, it's so cool.

Kristine: 59:08

It is cool. This is. This is not what I expected of my life. No, no, no. This is hard.

Carrie: 59:15

Yeah.

Kristine: 59:16

Really hard. Really, really hard. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm, I'm crying. This is really hard. I don't know what I'm doing every day. I didn't know what I wanted in my life. I didn't know what I wanted in my future. And then to have this extremely successful business mm-hmm. With the person that. I love the most. Sorry, Jayce

Carrie: 59:40

they know.

Kristine: 59:41

They do know. They know. Um, it's just really, I, I don't wanna use the word cool, but it is cool.

Carrie: 59:47

It is cool.

Kristine: 59:48

It's beautiful.

Carrie: 59:49

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 59:50

It's fun. Yeah. It's hard. It's real.

Carrie: 59:55

It is.

Kristine: 59:56

And here we are. And we have, I'm sniffeling and we have something really cool to show for what we did.

Carrie: 1:00:04

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:00:05

And now you guys know that it wasn't just this idea, it's not just this easy thing you guys see online. Mm-hmm. When you see us on Facebook, when you see us on Instagram, you see this easy portion of it,

Carrie: 1:00:18

and it's not, there has been so many, so much days.

Kristine: 1:00:22

I, I just wanted to save. I, I'm done.

Carrie: 1:00:24

Mm-hmm. And we've, we've definitely both said it to each other. We've had those moments where I looked at Kristine and I said, I don't want this today. Like I just, we, the nice thing about having a partner is on your off days, they get to support you and like carry you through it. Because there's days where I've looked at Kristine and I said, I just, I'm just not feeling it. Like I don't love this right now. I don't, yeah. I don't want. I can't imagine doing this for any longer because it's, you know, there's just some days that are so, so defeating.

Kristine: 1:00:55

Yeah. And we're in a very vulnerable business.

Carrie: 1:00:57

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 1:00:58

We have to show everything about ourselves.

Carrie: 1:01:01

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:01:01

We have to show our bodies. That's what you guys are here for, right? Is to see what, um, what fits, what doesn't, how it works on us, how it works on my. Small stature. What works on like carrie's long, uh, legs, what you know, what doesn't, what works and what doesn't work I remember the day that we showed a bralet.

Carrie: 1:01:20

Yep.

Kristine: 1:01:21

I we were alive. And I said, I took off camera, I said, Fuck it, Carrie, I'm gonna do it. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna take my shirt off, I'm gonna show what this actually looks like. Mm-hmm. And I did it and like the comments and like the rooting for me mm-hmm. To do that was like the most unreal thing. And so what we're doing is so hard because that took mm-hmm. Two years.

Carrie: 1:01:41

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:01:42

To actually show my. Like body and be confident to do it. And now I'm just strutting around here.

Carrie: 1:01:49

Yeah. It doesn't matter.

Kristine: 1:01:50

clothes. But like we are in a very vulnerable business.

Carrie: 1:01:53

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 1:01:53

So like, it is really, it's hard. And you guys don't see that on, on the lives.

Carrie: 1:01:59

No.

Kristine: 1:02:01

And I know we share a lot, especially in our insiders group, like letting you guys know, like how things make us feel. But it's, it's hard. And you know, even beyond that, like. We are an online business, so a lot of our interactions with people is, you know, they're behind a keyboard, behind a screen, and you hear the term keyboard warriors, like you have no idea. Oh yeah.

Carrie: 1:02:25

Like you just don't the words. Oh, they're, and you know, Kristine and I took a step back from customer service about two years ago, and it was one of the most freeing. Experiences of my life. Yeah. Because the messages we used to get and the emails and it just, it was hard. And it, you know, not that Stephanie doesn't have to deal with it, but I feel like when it's not your own business, you, you don't. Deal with it in the same way. Yeah. Like we, we definitely took so much to heart and there would be nights I wouldn't sleep,

Kristine: 1:02:59

especially when it was like we are showing ourselves mm-hmm. We're showing our bodies, we're showing our body types, and then we're answering to those messages and people don't, they don't realize that it's actually us on the other, other side.

Carrie: 1:03:10

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 1:03:11

So like when we're getting messages of like, let's say the beginning where it was just me in the photos and it's like, That girl's legs are spilling out of the shorts.

Carrie: 1:03:19

I remember that. I'll still remember that.

Kristine: 1:03:20

Like, she needs a bigger size. She's not as small as she thinks she is. That'll haunt me for the rest of my life.

Carrie: 1:03:28

Mm-hmm. Um,

Kristine: 1:03:29

so to read that was Yeah. Devastating

Carrie: 1:03:33

And to, to read about people's like negative experiences Yeah. Was something that, you know, we try so hard. Yes. And like we're only human and you know, it. It takes a lot out of you.

Kristine: 1:03:45

Oh, yeah.

Carrie: 1:03:46

Those, you know, so passing off customer service and not being as involved in it has definitely, um, taken a lot of stress away from both of us.

Kristine: 1:03:56

It has.

Carrie: 1:03:57

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 1:03:57

When Stephanie's not here, I'm like, I will. Be the first one to volunteer. Volunteer. And I, I do enjoy doing it. I, you know, when I get those nasty comments, obviously mm-hmm. I don't, but it is, that is a tough job. And to do that when it's about us is really hard

Carrie: 1:04:13

Yeah. About us and, you know, talking about our business cuz it's our baby. You know, so it's, it's amazing. And Stephanie, you're amazing. So Yeah.

Kristine: 1:04:24

Yeah. What a trip.

Carrie: 1:04:25

What a trip. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Kristine: 1:04:28

So that's LLB that is who we are as a business. Um, you guys are gonna learn so much more about actually us and as we go on with our

Carrie: 1:04:38

Yeah.

Kristine: 1:04:38

Podcast.

Carrie: 1:04:39

I mean, 99% of my personality is LLB, but yeah, there is another 1% that is pretty cool too.

Kristine: 1:04:46

Like, just joking.

Carrie: 1:04:48

Like, what, what, what?

Kristine: 1:04:50

Yeah. This is it for me.

Carrie: 1:04:54

Okay. So every episode we do a little thing called Fuck Mary Kill. Yeah, we do. Um, Kristine's gonna start it off.

Kristine: 1:05:01

Okay. So last week if you listened, mine sucked. It's going to continue to suck. Um, okay. So, Carrie was mentioning that she is watching Grey's Anatomy.

Carrie: 1:05:14

Okay.

Kristine: 1:05:15

Right now. So we're gonna do a Grey's edition.

Carrie: 1:05:17

Oh, love that.

Kristine: 1:05:18

I feel like this is pretty easy.

Carrie: 1:05:21

Mm-hmm.

Kristine: 1:05:21

In my opinion.

Carrie: 1:05:22

Okay.

Kristine: 1:05:23

Maybe I'm just setting my ways.

Carrie: 1:05:24

Okay.

Kristine: 1:05:24

And I've watched, you know I'm up to date, so we're gonna fuck Mary Kay Jackson. Oh, De Luca. Oh. And then we're just gonna, we're gonna go with the star of the show. We're gonna go with Meredith.

Carrie: 1:05:38

Oh, wow. Okay. Oh,

Kristine: 1:05:43

not as easy as I thought.

Carrie: 1:05:46

Well, I mean, I don't wanna do any spoilers, but. Um, okay. Because I love Meredith and I like, I wouldn't mind marrying her cuz she's pretty badass and like pretty successful, but like, DeLuca

Kristine: 1:06:03

shit, right?

Carrie: 1:06:04

Yeah. And I mean, Ja okay. I'm fucking Jackson.

Kristine: 1:06:07

Yeah,

Carrie: 1:06:07

like, I mean that's like, that's

Kristine: 1:06:09

there's DeLuca

Carrie: 1:06:10

then there's DeLuca and I think I'd marry him and I think I'd kill Meredith.

Kristine: 1:06:15

Okay that was exactly who I anticipated.

Carrie: 1:06:17

Yeah. I mean, I'd love to marry Meredith cuz she's smart and she's successful and like really cool. But at the same time, like we got DeLuca and Jackson on the table and

Kristine: 1:06:25

she's also so much married to her job. Mm-hmm. Like you would never be, you'd never see her. I'd like to see my spouse.

Carrie: 1:06:31

Yeah. And when DeLuca speaks to her in Italian. In the shit elevator. Yeah.

Kristine: 1:06:35

Speak to me baby.

Carrie: 1:06:36

Yeah. Okay. That's my answer. Okay. I liked that one. That was a good one.

Kristine: 1:06:40

Good. Okay. I'm glad.

Carrie: 1:06:41

Are you ready?

Kristine: 1:06:42

Yes. Born Ready.

Carrie: 1:06:43

Okay. We got boy Band Edition.

Kristine: 1:06:44

Oh shit. Yeah.

Carrie: 1:06:44

Okay, so we got Howie D from Backstreet Boys.

Kristine: 1:06:47

Yeah,

Carrie: 1:06:47

we got Joey.

Kristine: 1:06:49

Yeah.

Carrie: 1:06:49

From Nsync. And we have Isaac from Hansen.

Kristine: 1:06:51

Okay. So we got the D-list. Okay. Okay.

Carrie: 1:06:55

Okay, so this is the D-list Boy Band edition.

Kristine: 1:06:58

Okay. I think. Okay. I think Isaac's gotta die.

Carrie: 1:07:02

Yeah. I think that's just a no brainer. What? I mean, yeah. He brings no joy to me. Know me either. Like, he's just like, he's just there.

Kristine: 1:07:08

Like, why are you even here, Isaac?

Carrie: 1:07:09

He's just a filler.

Kristine: 1:07:09

Yeah, he's a filler. So, ah, shit. I guess I'm, I think, okay. I think I am going to fuck Howie. Because I feel like he would be like a really sensual, like lover.

Carrie: 1:07:24

Okay.

Kristine: 1:07:24

You know? Okay. Like I feel like he's going to. Give mama what she wants. Yeah. And I'm gonna marry Joey. I think he would bring me a good time in life. Like, I think he's full of, of adventure.

Carrie: 1:07:34

Yeah. He looks funny.

Kristine: 1:07:35

He does. Yeah. You know,

Carrie: 1:07:36

like he looks like be a funny guy.

Kristine: 1:07:38

Yeah. I think he would be freaking hilarious to be around. Yeah. So I think I would, okay. I would, uh, marry Joey. And I'm. Getting rose petals on my bed from Howie.

Carrie: 1:07:48

That's so nice.

Kristine: 1:07:48

Right? Yeah, I think he'd do that for me.

Carrie: 1:07:50

I really did enjoy that.

Kristine: 1:07:52

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. That was fun for me.

Carrie: 1:07:54

Yeah, this was a good one.

Kristine: 1:07:55

Okay. Well, so that is today's podcast. We are, uh, did I forget something else?

Carrie: 1:08:00

No, no. You absolutely didn't.

Kristine: 1:08:01

Oh, good. So that's today's podcast. Um, next week

Carrie: 1:08:04

we are gonna be talking about, uh, balancing life.

Kristine: 1:08:07

Oh shit.

Carrie: 1:08:08

The balance of life, business, family, kids, extracurriculars, keeping yourself healthy. Wow,

Kristine: 1:08:14

what, what is that?

Carrie: 1:08:16

Um, yeah, so that's next week. So tune in and don't forget to follow us.

Kristine: 1:08:21

On two Babes Podcast on Instagram. You can send us questions there. You can DM us, slide into our dms if you will. Mm-hmm. You can email us our questions at hello two babes podcast.com. What else? Do we got?

Carrie: 1:08:32

Our website? www.twobabespodcast.com and you can listen to us anywhere that you listen to your favorite podcast, Spotify, um, apple Podcasts

Kristine: 1:08:42

or wherever you listen to your podcast.

Carrie: 1:08:44

Yeah,

Kristine: 1:08:44

that's it. Okay. Okay. Bye.

Carrie: 1:08:46

Bye guys.