Promises, promises, promises

Okay I'm busted. I promised to post at least once a week. Well what I actually said was that I'd try. But you know how it is, life happens ... and the best laid plans seldom work out as planned.

Take last week for example; I'd wrapped up my last order of the year, and even printed up a couple of Christmas gifts for family friends. My husband had surprised me with an overnight visit to a local resort/spa to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary and I'd managed to enjoy a relatively quiet celebration of my birthday (no, I'm not tellin what number, you can forget that). It was finally time to close my office door and shut down for the Christmas/New Year holiday, it was time to relax and ease out of 2010.

I was even looking forward to a little hit -n- run trip to Texas to visit my BFF when our world got turned upside down by a health crisis for my much loved mother-in-law. After a brief hospital stay she's back on her feet, and is staying at our house for a few days while husband Keith travels to Hong Kong. Ya know, there's just nothing like a family health crisis to make you appreciate your own health, not to mention whatever time you may be blessed to spend with those you love.

It's now 5 days before Christmas. The gifts are wrapped, the stockings are hung, the tree is lit, the manger scene is in place on the mantle, and all the ingredients for the dozens of Christmas cookies I'd planned to bake are sitting in the kitchen. If only I could muster up the energy to actually mix it all up and bake those cookies! It's not as if I haven't tried, I've even managed to put out a couple dozen cookies. Just not the dozens I'd envisioned when I shopped for the mountain of "essentials" two weeks ago. Ah well, there's still time, right?

Well in between cookie recipe's I've been thinking about new products for 2011, and I'm thinking bibs. Baby bibs go with onezies like peanut butter goes with jelly ... they're made for each other. I've found a manufacturer here in the US that produces a nice quality white cotton/terry bib trimmed in colorful fabric piping. They stand up well to color and heat setting, and they wash up really well, something that's probably most important to busy parents.

In addition to the bibs, La Petite Pilot will introduce new t-shirts for toddlers, teens and adults. Our new designs are fun, colorful, sometimes a little irreverant, maybe even border-line suggestive. They get people talking, that's all I know for sure.

And in January, Keith and I will attend both the 2011 Gift Mart, where I hope to meet gift shop buyers from all over the world, as well as ISS, the International Sportswear Show. ISS is the biggest tradeshow out there for our kind of business. We're both so excited to be able to attend this important tradeshow where we look forward to meeting vendors and other decorated apparel producers alike.

The future looks bright and exciting, and La Petite Pilot is poised for even greater success. Stay tuned for more design and product news, as well as new photos! Until then, may your holidays be filled with the laughter and love of friends and family.

From our house to yours,

A Very Merry Christmas!

Back in the saddle again

Okay yes I admit, it's been a long time since I've posted to the blog, I'm either just busy or perhaps it's been a bit of laziness, I can't decide which. I'm going to try and post at least once a week, I'm one of those people who needs a deadline to motivate me.

It's been crazy busy here at La Petite Pilot as we wrap up our year. We've added more designs, more clients, and more outlets where our items are sold this year, (including our first International pilot shop in Madrid Spain). We've also upgraded our printing process thanks to a September purchase of an AnaJet Sprint direct-to-garment printer which you can see in action here; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltqgLsWHR0s&feature=related). While the AnaJet's a big investment, it's also a BIG improvement in our production process and the amount of time needed to process an order. An order that once took me 6 days to process can now be completed in 6 hours - or less!

Of course with new technology came learning a new computer program; for me that is Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, and while I'm not ready to proclaim myself an expert just yet, I'm comfortable saying I'm headed in the right direction.

Continuing to change with the needs of our clients, we've also decided to make a change in our choice of fabric used for the baby bodysuits or creepers we use. From day one we've been printing to a 65% poly/35% cotton blend using inks specifically for polyester, but that's not without its challenges. Thanks to a last minute client's request for T-shirts in addition to baby creepers, we're pleased to say we're making the move to an all cotton inventory. Starting in 2011, our baby creepers will be 100% pre-shrunk cotton! Not only do these garments have a soft feel to them, but cotton tends to be more breathable.

As the year draws to a close, it's important to recognize and give thanks to those who've contributed to our success;

A very special thank you to the most supportive spouse a woman could ever ask for; my husband Keith. For his long hours of helping set up the new printer, to helping me keep my cool when frustration set in, Keith's not just my partner, he's my biggest cheerleader and we just happen to be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary later this week. I couldn't have married a better man!

To my National Distributor, Tom Rubin and the team at AeroPhoenix for their continued support of our products; Thank you for believing in La Petite Pilot and for getting the word out.

To our independent clients in Colorado and Arizona; your support makes the long hours worthwhile. We will continue to endeavor to earn your respect and keep your business.

It's been an amazing year for Chez Lamb LLC and La Petite Pilot. We've met some incredible people along our journey, and we've learned a lot. Here's to even greater successes and blessings in the coming year.

From all of us here at La Petite Pilot,

We wish you every blessing and happiness. Merry Christmas!

Lori

Off my feet with time on my hands

Late last month I had occasion to spend a big block of time just sitting around. I had some long anticipated foot surgery that kept me off my feet just long enough for me to get bored ... which lead to a creative spurt. When you're sitting at home and your darling husband's waiting on you hand and foot (no pun intended) and daytime tv is leaving a lot to be desired, what's a girl to do but come up with some new designs for baby bodysuits and toddler t's?

Two of my newest designs "Crawl, Walk, Fly" and "I'm All About Airplanes" have recently been added to the La Petite Pilot family. In fact, one dozen baby bodysuits and two dozen toddler t's were delivered earlier this week to The Bamboo Airstrip, the delightful pilot shop located at Centennial Airport (KAPA) in Colorado.

Both designs are pictured below and are available in baby bodysuits (sizes 0-3 months, 3-6 months, and 6-12 months) or toddler t's (sizes 2T, 3T, 4T and 5T by special order). In addition to these two designs, La Petite Pilot continues to offer both baby bodysuits and toddler t's in "Just Plane Cute", "Daddy's Little Co-Pilot", and "When I grow up I'm gonna fly Helicopters just like my daddy".

Even though I promote La Petite Pilot as a purveyor of aviation-themed decorated apparel, aviation isn't all I do.

I recently made a baby body suit as a baby shower gift for an expectant mom in our family that said; "I didn't do it. No one saw me do it. I wanna talk to my grandma."

If you're looking for something special for a special someone in your life, drop me a line and lets talk about what La Petite Pilot can do for you.

Thanks for stopping by,

Lori

Mom said there'd be days like this

Among the life lessons learned at my late mothers knee were such gems as "put things back where you find them", "it's always easier to tell the truth", and the ever popular "Golden Rule", also known as the ethic of reciprocity. You know the one, it talks about doing unto others as you'd have done to you. Well lately, I seem to be the recipient of someone "doing unto me" as they no doubt would be loathe to have "done unto them'. What's laughable is that the individual doing the attacking is such a coward that they can only attack me with anonymous comments, which until recently I've mostly ignored.

Annalee Newitz of www.alternet.org writes in her excellent article "The Trouble with Anonymity of the Web"; "... an anonymous writer doesn't have to worry that their reputation will be tarred -- unlike, say, a writer at The New York Times, whose byline appears on his or her articles." Personally, I've always subscribed to the belief that if you're proud enough to say it, be proud enough to sign it, which is why I write this blog and sign my name to it, when in fact I myself could just as easily hide behind the anonymity of the Web.


Richard Connor of the Kennebec Journal hit the nail on the head when on March 13 he wrote; "It would be one thing if the comments from the faceless and the pseudonymous e-mailers were merely overheated - as opposed to petty, juvenile and downright cruel. But that's not the age we inhabit. With all of its blessings, high-speed technology brings some curses. One of them is providing individuals with a forum to attack others and their opinions without clearly identifying themselves."

Well I for one am unwilling to allow weak, cowardly individuals who lack civility and decency to harass me on my own blog. If these pitifully spineless creatures want to come out from the shadows of anonymity and autograph their work, I'll be only too happy to engage them in intelligent dialogue. But I will never publish anonymous comments and in fact, those that come to me for moderation with the "anonymous" header will henceforth be deleted without having been read.

This will be my last word on the subject. I have no patience for the ignorance and pettiness of those who sling mud yet lack the courage to show their dirty hands. And make no mistake, the dirt on those hands is evident to all around you. It won't be covered by you hiding behind big words, idle threats or even say, the Bible. Take your foolish little game and your small mindedness somewhere else. You're out of your league.

Lori Lamb

Inheritance and Legacy

A comment by my bff has me thinking about the things we inherit and the legacy we leave behind. Since no one gets out of here alive, I think at some point it's only natural to consider what we've done with our lives and what we will leave those we love with when we depart this world.

As a young girl, the only thing I cared to inherit was a beautiful glass-fronted bookcase handmade by my maternal grandfather. I'd watched the tender love and care he'd put into making the piece, and he and I shared a love of books. He'd actually made the bookcase as a place of honor for the many first and second edition printings of classics by authors he admired such as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne and Alexander Dumas. An appreciation which he passed on to me at an early age. When other little girls were being read bedtime story's from Little Golden Books, Pop was reading to me from Verne's "Around The World In Eighty Days". And when in his late 80's he died, I inherited his collection of books ... but not the beloved bookcase which housed them. That honor went to his daughter - my mother.

Growing up, I'd made casual comments to my mother about "Pops bookcase" someday being mine, and she'd assured me it would be so. Over the years, my mother inherited other bits and pieces from my grandparents life; a gilt music box with a faded little yellow canary atop, a brass stamp box that once had pride of place on my grandmother's desk, a beautiful Mahogany Duncan Pfyfe card table, as fashionable and timeless today as it was in the 1920's. Long after the passing of my beloved grandparents, these items served to remind me of happy days in their home; be it reading with my grandfather, or picking raspberries and putting up preserves with my grandmother.

Today Pop's bookcase showcases my favorite books along with my darling husbands' airplane collection, while grandma's Duncan Pfyfe table graces the entance to our home. The brass stamp box is once again filled with stamps, and sits ready in my office, and the little yellow canary, even more faded today, adorns a shelf where it serves as a daily reminder of the gracious and gifted woman I called Grandma.

There have been many other things I inherited from my mother and her parents, as well as my father's mother. But some of the best things I inherited, aren't "things" at all. In addition to inheriting Pops love of books and reading, I think I inherited his love of gardening and beating the birds to the best berries! From Grandma I believe I inherited my appreciation for a pretty table (bff and I joke that we are "dish whores") and my ability to spend hours wandering the aisles of stores such as Home Goods just admiring pretty dishes and linens.

Books may be enjoyable to read, furniture can make a home comfortable, and while jewelry adorns a hand, and money buys many things, the thing I've inherited that I value the most is the legacy of appreciating kindness, honesty, courage and fairness. My maternal grandparents embodied all four of these, and they reminded my siblings and me of the importance of these qualities at every opportunity.

We will each of us meet many people on the road through our lives, some will be dishonest, some will take advantage of our kindness, some may even rob us of our courage momentarily. I choose to believe that these poor souls are simply misguided or lost, and I try my best to feel pity for them. And then I remember a favorite quote (author unknown) on our refrigerator door that reads;

"In the end, it will not be our beliefs that are judged, it will be our actions and intentions. So believe what you wish, but be careful of what you do and why you do it."

Words my Grandma and Pop lived by every single day, and a gift I inherited that is more valuable than any book or bauble ever could be.

What will your children inherit from you, that will outlast mere "things"?

What will your legacy be?


Lori

The junk drawer

We had one when I was growing up, I had one when I was single, my husband and I have one now. What is it about the family "junk drawer" that we never seem to outgrow and cannot live without?

Rubber bands, paper clips, hotel note pads, pens from around the world I understand. What I don't get are the bits and pieces that seem to have no purpose, yet we cannot toss them out;

The chain piece to a door lock long ago removed
The label of a wine we once enjoyed
A CD for a version of AOL my darling husband used in 2003
A broken mechanical pencil that no one tries to fix
Fabric swatches, tile samples, business cards and book marks
An article torn from a magazine, one shoe lace, expired coupons
And keys, keys, keys ... of every size and shape and color imaginable.

Why do we save things that on the surface appear to have no purpose? Why don't we just let it go in the first place, instead of tossing it in the junk drawer? Why does my husband get that look of fear on his handsome face when I casually mention it's time to dump out the junk drawer?

What's in your junk drawer? I bet you don't even know. But I'm challenging you to explore that forbidden territory, and to do some dumping of your own!

As for me, I know what I'm going to be doing this afternoon.

Summer Day

I've always thought that two of the prettiest words in the English language are SUMMER DAY. When I think of summer days gone by, I remember laying in the grass behind my Ohio home listening to the bees buzzing in the Tulips, and the birds in the Cherry tree while I watched airplanes floating lazily through the cloudless summer sky. I remember trips to the neighborhood swim & tennis club, riding bikes with neighborhood friends, and collecting coffee cans full of flowers to present with a smile to my mother as she hung our laundry on the backyard line.

Sometimes I think how nice it would be to go back to those carefree summer days of childhood, when my toughest decision was what color ribbon I should tie around my pigtails. And then I think; WHAT? And miss all the fun I'm having right here, right now?? Not on your life!!!

In late February my darling husband surprised me by building me a raised garden bed just like those described in the wonderful book "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. I planted two varieties of tomato's, onions, bib lettuce, arugula, dill, rosemary, green peppers, basil, thyme, lavender, chocolate mint, strawberries, and marigolds. In the days that followed, I planted beets and two types of zucchini plants as well as cherry tomato's, both runner and bush beans and purple peppers of all things! And then I started on the flowers (a story for another day)!

What started with the intention of being a simple summer garden of bits and bobs, soon turned into something far bigger and much more joyous, and drew my husband and the apple of his eye - my 11 year old stepdaughter Chloe - out of the house into the garden. Chloe's favorite part of gardening is picking (and eating) the strawberries and cherry tomato's. She laughs with glee as she teases her father that she's eaten more than him, though she always saves at least one of something for daddy.

Husband Keith seems to be getting a kick out of how much I'm enjoying my days of leisure as a lady farmer, and is always game to let me try out a new garden-fresh ingredient at dinner. His current favorites are the sliced then grilled eight-ball zucchini drizzled with Tuscan olive oil, and the pesto I make with homegrown lemon basil. Needless to say, he also has yet to turn down my

lavender-infused Creme Brulee (made from scratch, and with homegrown lavender of course)!

Now my summer days are filled with the sound of birds fighting over figs in the tree in the orchard, bees buzzing through the French lavender and pots over-flowing with Vinca and pink Wand Flower, and the happy sight and sound of my family enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Go back to the summers of my childhood? Not a chance ... not when I'm having the time of my life!!

A word from the blog owner; please note that comments, while always welcome, are always moderated. No comments appear without my review and consent.

Wishing you a bee-buzzing, bloom filled, beautiful Summer Day!

Lori

It's quiet on the western front

I must apologise for the past few months of La Petite Pilot's blog being so quiet. Maybe it's winter doldrums, maybe it's the family obligations I've been innundated with of late, but I've not had much time for blogging since the new year started. What I have been doing is working on some new designs, especially some for girls, and looking for new opportunities to sell my T-shirts and onesies.

This year I hope to offer my work at a couple of airshows as well as through two new online sources. Additionally, in the coming months, my darling husband and I plan to introduce our online pilot shop under Wings Over The Rockies.

It's a new year and a new opportunity for growth. Check back with us often to see what's news with La Petite Pilot!