A few weeks ago, I took my daughter to The Adventure Park for a lovely, outdoor mother-daughter date. It was about 75 degrees outside, and underneath the canopy of the park’s shady trees, I congratulated myself for facilitating such an enjoyable experience. That lasted until I started the “adventure” part.
Google calls The Adventure Park an “aerial forest climbing and zip-line course,” which sounds quite pleasant. I’d actually hosted Alice’s 11th birthday party there, and those fifth-graders all seemed to have a fantastic time. So I was not expecting to spend my afternoon inadvertently doing an intense core workout and repeatedly exclaiming variations of “are you effing kidding me?” a...
Abby here! I may have mentioned before that my career as a retail real estate broker began right after I graduated from Georgetown. I'd spent four years studying, learning, and doing quite a bit of socializing. Lucky for me, I was beginning a career where all my hard work chatting up strangers at Smith Point was a transferable job skill. 🍻
To be a great broker, you need strong relationships with other brokers (and not just because some can get you into hot new restaurants). It didn't take long on the job to learn exactly why, and I've written about it today. Enjoy!
It’s okay. You can stop pretending now. I appreciate the effort and that you don’t want to hurt my feelings, but I promi...
Abby here! It takes a village to care for a newborn, a two-year-old, and somehow still show up to work dressed and on time! So I've enlisted some help in the form Dio's and my parents. As grateful as we are for the help, the trade-off is we now receive approximately 147 urgent texts a day about Henry. "Is it normal if he wakes up 10 minutes early from his nap?" "He only finished half his bottle. Should I call the doctor?" "I can't find his swaddle anywhere — how will he ever sleep again!?"
As it turns out, none of these matters are urgent. So, I've been leaving my family on read, and I suggest you do the same! (No one tell my mother I said that.)
There are lots of reasons people ...
Sheila here! As a bona fide Xennial, I didn't enter a Sephora until I was in college. So like any sane person, when I first heard of "Sephora kids," I figured it was just another sign of living in the end times, and there was NO WAY my daughter would be among them. Ha! Jokes on me. Just like trying to avoid screens and Happy Meals, the only way to do it is to move to an isolated homestead and become a tradparent. I churned butter once, and that was enough. All this is to say, I'm not condoning the use of firming under-eye serums by children -- I'm just trying to survive an 11 year old thankyouverymuch.
Last month, my sister and I had the distinct pleasure of taking our girls – ages 11,...
Abby here! I imagine we've all dated someone who seemed alright at first, but in short order, something they did or said gave us the ick. Thankfully, we can bail on the potential relationship the moment we realize there's no future for it...but only because we went on the date in the first place.
Similarly, the only way to find out if an LOI might bloom in a lease is to jump right in -- even before we know if it chews with its mouth open or administers any alarming subreddits. Enjoy!
Just last month, I had a first day touring with a Pedal Retailer who’d recently graduated from the Dream Space Accelerator. The sun was shining, the cherry blossoms were giving way to fresh new leaves, ...
Faith here! I recently watched Netflix’s America’s Godfathers: The Five Families, and I can’t stop thinking about New York City’s history with the mafia. When I finished the series, I started watching another series on the mafia in Philadelphia – this is my entire personality now. As is our style at Pedal, I couldn't help but see the connections to retail life, and I've shared my observations below. Grazie and arrivederci!
Before we dive in, let me set the stage. The history of the mafia in New York City starts as an immigration story. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Italian immigrants were coming to the United States with little more than their family and the hope of opportunity. Af...
“You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part… the holding.”
These words were spoken by:
- Samantha Jones to a top-hat wearing bouncer at a club opening
- Jerry Seinfeld at a rental car counter
- Ross to a restaurant hostess, thinking he's about to blow it on a date
The correct answer is B, and this line is, IMHO, Seinfeld at its best. It’s a supremely relatable daily frustration delivered perfectly: Jerry is judicious with his words, and yet he makes his point so clearly that no reasonable person could dispute it.
If I had a standup act and Jerry’s talent, I’d also deliver life’s fundam...
Last weekend I had some time to kill while my daughter was at a birthday party, so I took advantage of the party’s location and went to Trader Joe’s. The good news is that I made perfect use of 90 minutes. The bad news is that I violated one out of two cardinal rules of grocery shopping:
- Always have a list
- Never go hungry
While I did have a general list, I was starving…and boy did it show at the checkout. Do you know how hard it is to spend $200 at Trader Joe’s? My grocery bill at regular ol’ Harris Teeter never hits $200, even when I use Instacart; my small family just doesn't consume all that much. So this was an eye-popper.
Had prices unexpectedly increased at Trader Jo...
