06/09/2026
✨ The Good, The Bad & The Ugly... Walnut Creek Vintage Fair Edition ✨
What. A. Weekend.
The Good: ❤️
Walnut Creek Vintage Fair was everything I love about small business life. I met so many wonderful customers, visited with familiar faces, laughed with fellow vendors, and watched so many of you bring home pieces that you truly loved. Thank you for supporting Prim & Proper and choosing to shop small. It means more than you'll ever know.
The Bad: 🌧️
About halfway through Saturday's event, Mother Nature decided she had other plans.
What started as a beautiful market day quickly turned into small hail, lightning, and winds estimated around 60 mph. While everyone scrambled to save what they could, I found myself literally trying to hold my (weighted) tent down as the storm rolled through. Displays toppled, furniture shifted, inventory had to be rescued, and for a few moments, it felt like complete chaos.
The Ugly: 😅
I emerged from the ordeal looking like an absolute drowned rat — soaked from head to toe, covered in rain, and wondering how on earth I'd put everything back together. If you swipe through the photos, you'll see that the "cozy vintage market aesthetic" quickly became more of a "surviving the elements" situation.
But here's the thing about small businesses: you adapt. You problem-solve. You dry things out, pick up the pieces, and keep moving forward. The support from neighboring vendors and everyone checking in reminded me that community is one of the very best parts of this journey.
Sunday brought a chance to give back in another way. Prim & Proper was proud to sponsor a hole at the Shielded Paws K9 Golf Outing, supporting an organization that provides tools and equipment to K9 units and their handlers. It was especially meaningful knowing it helps support our own Rittman Police Department K9 teams — Officer Hunter & K9 Narc and Officer Colter & K9 Limbo.
And to top it all off, I made it just in time to watch my son's Sting Baseball Club team battle their way to a Runner-Up finish at the Curveball Community Classic. They left it all on the field, finishing the weekend 4–1 and showing resilience, grit, and heart. I couldn't be more proud. 💛⚾️🖤🐝
If this weekend taught me anything, it's this:
Life isn't always picture-perfect. Sometimes it's sunshine. Sometimes it's storms. Sometimes you're holding onto a tent in a hailstorm looking like a drowned rat. And while I sincerely hope this weekend was a once-in-a-while experience, I'm realistic enough to know it probably won't be the only time life throws me a curveball.
The difference is who you weather the storms with, what you learn from them, and finding the gratitude to appreciate the sunshine when it returns.
Thank you for supporting Prim & Proper through the beautiful moments, the messy ones, and everything in between. I wouldn't trade this small business journey for anything.
🤍
