08/17/2026
A LITTLE HEART-TO-HEART FROM US 🤍
As many of you know, our A/C wasn’t working this weekend, and what happened behind the scenes was a little more complicated than you may have realized.
Patrick and I had planned what was supposed to be our very first getaway, just the two of us, since we got married. No big plans. Just a little time away to scope things out for a future family vacation, wake up slowly, sip coffee and, most of all, have one weekend where we could step away from the shoppe and be completely stress-free.
As small business owners, we don’t get much time, if any, to put ourselves first. And honestly, that’s okay. We chose this life. We love what we do and we love our shoppe. But we also know that every once in a while, we need to take a little time to focus on our relationship and step away for just a moment.
So, of course, just when we thought we were finally getting that weekend…we got the call Saturday morning.
The A/C wasn’t working on either side of the shoppe.
Cue the frantic phone calls. The back-and-forth messages. The panic. And, if I’m being completely honest, the fear of the unknown costs that come with something like this had me in a complete spiral.
We ended up cutting our trip short and coming home because we knew we needed to be here to try to figure out what was happening and do everything we could to get the issue resolved before we open on Thursday.
Then came the hardest decision.
Do we stay open or temporarily close our doors until we can get it fixed?
The temperature inside the shoppe reached 88° and wasn’t looking to get any cooler. We never want our customers to walk through our doors and feel anything other than welcomed, loved and comfortable. And the same goes for our staff. They deserve to work in a positive environment AND a comfortable one.
So we made the difficult decision to close early.
For a small business, that decision hurts.
Emotionally, we never want to disappoint our customers. We hate the thought of someone making the trip to see us only to find our doors closed.
And financially, when you’re a small business with limited hours, every hour open matters. Every customer matters. Every purchase matters.
But sometimes, doing the right thing means making the hard decision.
And through all of it, we were reminded of something even more important…
YOU.
Our customers.
The people who continue to show up for us, shop with us, share our posts, tell their friends about us, check on us and cheer us on through the good days AND the stressful ones.
We truly cannot thank you enough for supporting our little shoppe and this crazy small-business life we chose. Your support means more than you probably realize.
Thank you for understanding. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for continuing to choose Real Deals.
And thank you for reminding us why we do this in the first place. 🤍
With so much gratitude,
Patrick & Aspen
