👢 Boots On the Ground This Week, In More Ways Than One
Edition 08 - Originally sent Sunday, September 27, 2026
Dates, events, and offers below were current that week.
OFF THE DESK, ONTO THE FLOOR
A first Purple Porch retail shift, a blueberry crumble comeback, and a meeting tomorrow that's got me nervous.
Some weeks teach you more standing behind a counter than sitting behind a desk.
☕️ Not Live From The General
Different kind of Sunday. South Bend's Fusion Fest was happening today in the park directly across the street from The General, and I made the executive decision that my usual booth was going to be a madhouse. So I skipped the cafe routine entirely and I'm writing this from my living room instead, otherwise known as The Cozy Woodsy Retreat.
Backing up to earlier in the weekend first, though: more dental work earlier this week meant crunchy was still off the table, so I passed on Sunchoke Farms Bakery's granola again. No granola, no real reason to make the trip (otherwise I'd just come home with an entire bag of Sunchoke's amazing cookies), so Saturday's South Bend Farmer's Market got skipped too.
Counterspell still delivered, though, with the usual bomb-ass breakfast sandwich and coffee, plus the big news of the week: the Blueberry Crumble is back on the menu. My personal favorite, gone for who knows how long, finally back in rotation.
From there I headed over for a retail shift at Alchemy Healing Arts, spending most of the weekend building out their fall offering calendar and polishing up a few online listings.
And today, instead of my usual Sunday ritual, I slept in and worked a retail shift at the Co-op. It threw me for a loop with how busy it was, but it was genuinely a lot of fun. I'm going to start filling in for retail shifts there as needed going forward, and honestly, I think it's overdue.
There's a version of marketing that happens entirely from a desk, looking at numbers and calendars. Then there's the version where you're actually behind the counter, watching what people pick up, what they ask about, what makes them pause. You can't fully understand your products, or the people buying them, without spending real time on the floor. Boots on the ground beats a spreadsheet every time.
👀 What's Happening Around Town?
One upcoming series I'm especially excited about for October: Vinyasa Vibes with Anna Cenova, CYT at Alchemy Healing Arts, a run of Tuesday mornings throughout October, kicking off October 6th at 7:00 AM ($20 per class, 1 hour each). An energizing, strength-building yoga flow set to a good playlist, connecting movement with breath. Anna will be joining as a new guest instructor at Alchemy, and we're wishing her the best as she gets started.
Also, tomorrow, this one isn't a ticketed community event, but I've got a big marketing meeting that, if it goes well, would be a real step up for me professionally. I'm not the praying type, but I won't turn down a little good energy sent my way. ✨
🤠 Wrangling in the Wild
Nothing flashy to report this week: no big launches, no dramatic before-and-afters. Just the kind of quiet systems work that never makes it into a highlight reel but keeps everything running underneath: cleaning up a few listings here, tightening a workflow there, making sure the small stuff doesn't turn into big stuff down the line. And now, a little time on a retail floor too, because sometimes the most useful data isn't in a dashboard. It's in what a customer says out loud while they're standing right in front of you.
It's not the kind of work anyone claps for. But it's the difference between a business that runs on memory and one that runs on systems, and that difference is the whole point.
📝 The Un-Sexy Stuff That Actually Works
This week's theme, in one sentence: nobody's clapping for any of this, and that's exactly the point.
More backend cleanup. A few listings tightened up. A first retail shift that taught me more in a few hours than a month of reports would have. Nothing that photographs well, nothing that makes for an exciting update. Just the same quiet groundwork I keep coming back to in this newsletter, because it keeps coming back to matter.
A business doesn't break because of one big dramatic failure. It breaks because a dozen small, boring things went unattended for too long. That includes marketing that never bothers to actually stand where the customer stands. This week was another deposit in that account.
🐴 Ride With Us
Nothing dramatic to ask about this week. I'm just curious what's sitting on your quiet-maintenance list right now. The listing that needs updating, the workflow that's been "fine for now" a little too long, the small thing you keep meaning to get to. Send me a note at Carrington@thewileyhaase.com and tell me what it is. Sometimes just naming it out loud is the first step to actually wrangling it.
👋 Until Next Sunday
That's Edition 08 in the books. It was a week that didn't make headlines, and I've made my peace with that. Sometimes the story really is just: things got a little quieter, a little more hands-on, and everything kept running exactly the way it's supposed to.
Congrats to Notre Dame on the win over Purdue this weekend, keep fighting, Irish. And can we talk about how 65 degrees in September hits completely different than 65 in April? Same number, entirely different vibe. Enjoy it, stay cozy, and I'll see you next Sunday.
See you next Sunday.
