If I were asked to sum up this blog into one “category,” I just couldn’t.  Technically, it is the blog of the Glacier County Honey Company, the beekeeping business my husband and I started shortly before our marriage.  And therefore, this blog should probably focus solely on all things Apis mellifera.

But if you read even semi-regularly, you know very well that I write about the light that glimmers on the Mirror at sunset just as often as I write about the glow cast by beeswax candlelight, that I love Glacier National Park every bit as much as I love our beekeeping forklift, and that even sweet honey can’t take all the sting out the grief I still feel, will probably always feel, for the loss of my youngest brother.

And really, that makes sense, and I know so many small business owners out there understand what I’m trying to say – that when you are a small business owner, your life runs with your business, and your business is equally influenced by your life.  When you start a company and pour your heart, soul, and retirement account into it, when you shed blood as you construct the building that will house your company, when you can’t sleep one night because you’re worried to death about the financial risks you’ve taken, and can’t sleep the next because you’re so darn excited to get up the next day and tinker with your latest product idea, then you understand that the small business and the small business owner are, for all practical  purposes (non-IRS ones, clearly), one entity.  A small business owner is always working, and even when she is not working, she is thinking about how she should be working.  Some of those times, she even wishes she were working!  A small business takes over your life, becomes your life, ruins your life some days and is the greatest pride of your life on others.

American Express is “sponsoring,” or at least advertising, a November 27 event they’re calling “Small Business Saturday.”  I imagine their goal is to encourage people to max out their Amex cards (not a good goal) but they are encouraging such financial irresponsibility to occur at small businesses, and that is a goal we can get behind!  We’re participating in the movement to encourage America to buy from the folks who pay 44% of this country’s private payroll, who if given the support to expand, could likely employ even more Americans, and help to heal our economy.  And as a result we’re offering 10% off of our tshirts, sweatshirts, and beeswax ornaments on Saturday, November 27.  And yes, we take American Express, and all other credit/debit cards, through PayPal.

Whether or not you’re buying from Glacier County Honey Co., please consider making your holiday purchases from small businesses this year.  It’ll put a little holiday in your heart.

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