The Curtain and Pen

Nebraska Copywriting Services for Small Business

Blog

By

The Local Awesome: Omaha Bicycle Co.

My dreams have come true.

For someone who does most of her work on a computer, a good coffee shop can be pretty important.

Up until a little over a month ago, my best choices were McDonald’s (they have wifi) and Panera. Neither one is super-close, and they’re both chains. There’s a local coffee shop that’s just a bit further away, but I can’t help but feel like I’m a little too “pregnant mom-blogger” for the hipster crowd that usually resides there.

I’d been watching for a few weeks as a small group of bicycle-riding people revamped a small, neglected store in downtown Benson. When the unlit neon sign advertising “espresso” went up in the window, my heart started dancing like Kevin Bacon on prom night and I couldn’t wait to see what was going to show up in that little store.
This was when the Omaha Bicycle Co. swooped in to save me forever from spending too much money, driving too far, and low self-esteem caused by horn-rimmed, trendy stares.

Sitting down with owner Sarah Johnson was the most relaxed Local Awesome interview for me to date. Sarah is an Omaha native, and has worked in various bike shops over the years, but is finally bringing her 10+ years of bicycle experience into her very own shop. Over coffee and within the warm walls of the OBC, I learned that there are three things at the top of this lady’s list when it comes to her business:

1. The Coffee
2. The Bikes
3. The People

Those three things are in no particular order. In fact, #3 should probably be at the top, but for dramatic effect, I’ll leave it till the end. (You know me, I’m a sucker for dramatic effect.)

OBCcoffee

First of all, the coffee. Oh, man. These guys bring in a brand of coffee from Chicago calledIntelligentsia. It’s delicious. Now, I’m not the world’s most distinguished coffee connoisseur, but I can tell when a cup of coffee is damn good. If you go to their website, you’ll see that they are a direct trade coffee company, which means that they deal directly with the farmers. They travel to the actual farms in countries like Guatemala and Rwanda twelve months out of the year. How’s that for quality concern?

They’ve got coffee for everyone, too. You want something sweet and covered in whipped cream? They’ve got it. You want a plain black cup of Joe? They’ve definitely got it. You’ve got a persnickety kid who hasn’t taken a nap and only wants to eat an espresso cup of whipped cream? Trust me, they’ve got it.

OBCbikes

Now, here’s the other ingredient that makes this place so cool: the bikes. When you walk in, you’re greeted with warm-colored walls, great décor, a fully stocked espresso/coffee station, and an entire wall of bicycles. That’s right, bicycles. These guys not only make spectacular coffee, but also fix, build, and sell great-quality bicycles. There’s a healthy-but-small selection of new bikes for sale, but they mainly focus on custom-builds and repair. Every time I’ve walked in the door, I’ve seen Vince, the man with the bike-fixing plan, quietly working away behind the counter in back. Sarah is also responsible for bike work, and is actually a certified “fit technician,” which means that she’ll create a bike that fits you like it came attached to you when you entered this world. When you want them to build a custom bike for you, expect an interview. These guys want to find out who you are and what you do. You want a bike that will mainly get you to the grocery store, but someday take you biking across the West Coast? Or, you want a bike that powers your iPhone while you pedal to your destination? These guys have got you covered.

OBCteam
Vince, Sarah, and Katie

Granted, coffee and bikes are awesome. You know what’s truly truly awesome, though? Walking into a business for the first time and being genuinely welcomed. You know what’s even more awesome than that? Walking into a business the second time and being recognized (and then being genuinely welcomed again).
Sarah is very vocal about how important community is to her and the Omaha Bicycle Co. I went through my usual questions when we sat down together:

Me: Why Benson?
Sarah: There’s so much going on here. Benson is proud of Benson… and it’s just full of so much life.
Me: What’s your favorite thing about the shop?
Sarah: The people. Hands down. It’s like a place where people can just come out and geek out about bikes. I love it when people say, “I heard it’s a bike shop and a coffee shop, how’s that work?”

I don’t think Sarah will mind if I tell you that she got a little emotional talking about how much support she got from the community during the process of creating this business. The Omaha Bicycle Co. was built in spite of some rather unfortunate circumstances and a very uncertain summer, and the Omaha bicycling community wasted no time in lifting her up and carrying her through a very difficult time. An IndieGoGo campaign made over $15,000, and the donations keep on coming in the form of a beautiful back patio, and even a Christmas tree from a mysterious Secret Santa. The perky blonde making coffee? That’s Katie, and she’s there as a volunteer, working for tips.

“Community. That’s what I love more than bikes, is people.” Sarah said. “People make things happen.”

The shop is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9-7, and is closed Sunday and Monday so that they can fill their bike orders. They’re open till 10 PM on First Fridays, though, and are also constantly organizing group rides and other events that you can learn about by liking them on Facebook.

So, for realskies, guys, you’ve got to check this place out. Come for the coffee, come for the bikes, come for the people behind the counter… you’ll get a smile and a warm greeting, regardless of why you’re there.

By

One for the Books

It doesn’t get much sexier than that, does it?

Whoah.

As you can tell from my “most recent” post, November was kind of an intense thirty days. I literally haven’t blogged anything for this page in over a month. Yikes.

It was totally worth it, though.

I can’t believe I pulled it off, but I successfully cranked out 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. The story itself isn’t finished, but by the time I hit the 50k, I needed a break. I’m going to let the story marinate for a little while, and give my brain some time off. I think, toward the end there, I was just pushing myself so hard to crank out the words that they’re probably not the best few thousand that I’ve written.

That’s okay, though. This whole challenge ended up being so, so good for me in so many ways. First of all, getting that little idea for a story out of my head and onto the page felt like I had freed up this chunk of my mind that was holding on, super-tight-like, to that little idea, trying not to forget what I had already conjured up. Now, it’s on paper (screen, rather), and I’ve got more room to flesh out the story and come up with more blog posts.

It’s also given me a huge long-term goal.

See, the thing about me is that I have a very long history of starting things and not finishing them. Generally, this is in reference to exercise programs, but other areas of my life suffer from it as well. Last year, I spray painted about 16 picture frames various shades of brown, and I’m pretty sure that only 7 of them have pictures in them. 3 of those 7 are actually on the walls. This, however, is something that I put more than two hours of my life into. I didn’t keep track of the actual time I spent on writing last month, but I do know that I wrote over 100 pages-worth of story, and that’s about 88 more pages that I’ve ever written in general. I sacrificed quite a bit of snuggling time with Paul, and when your grad-school-family is plugging through the second half of the semester, snuggle time is kind of a big deal.

If any of my fellow NaNoWriMo participators are reading this, I’d love to know how you keep yourselves motivated to do the revisions upon revisions that are required of making a novel that isn’t terrible. My plan (after giving myself the months of December and January for baby-ness) is to give myself a 10,000 word a month goal. If I did 50,000 in one month, I can totally handle 10,000… whether it’s actual writing or revising.

I often find that it’s better to think realistically, but sometimes you’ve got to dream, you know? Can you imagine actually writing a book that gets published and makes money? If I could bring extra support for my family, using the characters that have been living inside my head… jeeze, that would be so, so sweet.

Anyway, on the last night of November, Paul went out and bought me a bottle of sparkling grape juice and a bar of Godiva milk chocolate to celebrate. Yeah, Paul’s pretty awesome.

He kept telling me I was going to spill my “bubbly,” and apparently he wasn’t kidding.

Here’s to accomplishing goals and letting ourselves dream a little!

 

By

NaNoWriMo

I have done something fairly crazy.

I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. This is a challenge in which millions of people around the world sign up to spend their November attempting to write a 50,000 word novel.

Will I actually hit the 50k by the end of the month? I have no idea, but I do know that I’ll have more written than I do right now. I’ve had an idea bouncing around in my head for over a year now, and I’m not doing myself any favors by not writing it.

What some people hate (but secretly I think I’ll like) is that the organizers stress that younot edit. Editing is for December, they say. November is just to write. If I’ve got a word goal and a free pass to just write without worrying about how it all looks, I may actually get something substantial created. The fact that I’m doing this before I have this baby means that it will probably get finished years sooner than if I would have waited.

In the past, I’ve always started novels about subjects that would require a lot of research on my part. Well, I’ve gotten a little bit more realistic in my recent years, and decided that that’s just not a good plan for me if I actually want to get a novel written.

So what do I know? Like, really know, without having to do any (or much) research about it?

I spent five years in a small university Theatre setting. I was surrounded by personalities and egos the size of small aircraft, and had plenty of truly meaningful moments during my time there. I’ve got five years of zany, passionate experiences just collecting dust up in my brain, and I think I can really breathe some life back into them if I just sit down and put my mind to it.

What this means, though, is that the month of November is probably going to be a little bleak as far as blogging goes. If I’ve got time to sit down at a computer, I damned well better be throwing a few words at that big ole 50k. I’ll still blog every Friday at Fruita Moms, and I’ll throw a post up here when I can, but I’m definitely not going to hurt myself trying to get in more than one post a week.

Finally, I’ve got a request for you guys. If you see me, or talk to me, please make sure I’m writing. I don’t care if you’re gentle or obnoxious about it; I would just really appreciate the random nudge to keep me on track. Whether I hit the 50k is not all that important to me; I just don’t want to do this lazily. I want it to be purposeful and fulfilling, and I’m going to need a little help keeping my eyes on the prize.

Thanks in advance, friends. I’m ready to give November a big, sloppy kiss on the lips.

By

Operation: Afternoon Sanity

Okay, folks. Here we go, embarking on yet another adventure in parenting betterment.

Charlie has almost entirely stopped taking naps. Naps used to happen when I would (EXTENDED BREASTFEEDINGALERT) nurse him to sleep. That’s just how he always went down and when I officially finally weaned him, the afternoon naps were no longer guaranteed. For a while, I could plan our days to end up with us driving home from somewhere at about 1:00 . . . this would result in him falling asleep on the way home. Nap time would ensue, blog posts would get written, work would get done, and I would be caught up on the current season of Bones.

Well, since we recently switched Charlie to a forward-facing seat, the car-naps too have ended. There’s just too much cool stuff to see, now that he’s looking ahead, and will still be awake after 45 minutes of driving around.

I know that I’ve probably got some readers thinking, “I don’t get it. You put them in their bed, tell them it’s nap time, and shut the door.”

I get that, but that’s just not how we do stuff around here. Our house has developed into a pretty open-door-type household, and for us to just shut Charlie in his room after 2 and a half years of nursing him to sleep and laying down with him at bed-time would make it seem more like a punishment than an institution of structure.

We’ve been parenting in the way we felt would work best for our family, and it’s simply time to adapt to the changes.

Today, at 1:00, I laid down in bed with Charlie, a book, and a bowl of goldfish. After about an hour and a half of him not falling asleep, I told him he could get out of bed, but he needed to stay in his room and play with his toys for 30 minutes.

(I’d like to clarify that, in the above picture, the bowl has a few chocolate chips in it, Charlie is wearing socks on his hands because I hadn’t yet given in and turned the heater on, and I am NOT trying to get him down for a nap, because that would a terribly stupid way to do so. It’s just the only recent picture I had of him on his bed in the afternoon. Also, I turned the heater on shortly after taking that picture.)

I’m pretty sure he made it for 30 minutes. I forgot to set a timer because I’m awesome like that. I did, however, get most of this blog post written and an important email sent out, so it wasn’t a total waste. This will happen again tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and so on and so forth. I’m hoping that, eventually, as he gets more used to lying down in bed, he’ll be able to relax enough to fall asleep. He needs a nap. I know he needs one, because at about 6 PM he gets suuuuuuper cranky and tired. If he falls asleep at 6 PM, though, he will absolutely wake up at 3 AM, totally ready for the day.

Nobody wants that.

So we will soldier on, lying down in bed with books and goldfish every afternoon. At the very least, I’m getting to lay down with my feet up for an hour, right?

As always, I’m totally open to advice, if you guys have it. Just keep in mind that my semi-crunchy-partial-hippie blood runs strong and free through my veins, the way that mid-90’s Cher song runs through your head after leaving the grocery store.