Christmas Trees for a Cause- Wednesday, November 13, 2013
If you are planning on getting a Christmas tree this year, may we suggest that you get a Christmas tree AND support a great cause?
Please check out this link for more information on how you can give sweet little Poppy-pants a brighter Christmas. We can think of no better way to deck the halls than with a Poppy Tree!
Turn on the radio or TV and you are bound to find your favorite show being (annoyingly) interrupted by commercials from big businesses and chain stores. What you won't see are commercials of your local, small businesses that are right in your own backyard. Small business = Small advertising budget, but every business needs customers to be successful, and that's where YOU come in. In the world of small business, YOU are the most powerful advertising tool we could possibly have. There are so many ways you can support your local small businesses without much time or effort. Here are just a few:
1. Social Media.
You'd have to be living in a cave to not know about Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Twitter or any other multitude of social media sights. Whichever format is your favorite, when you are here, check-in and give us some love! OK, so maybe you don't want the paparazzi showing up wherever you are... then check in when you are leaving. Did you know that we have a reward for checking in? No? Well, check it out, and then check in!
While you are at it, make sure that you have "Liked" our Facebook page, that you have selected to have it show up in your news feed and that you like and comment on posts. Facebook keeps changing the way it allows businesses to communicate with you, so you have to be pro-active and make sure we can! We have put social media sharing links on all of our newsletters to you so that you can easily share them with your friends as well!
2. Review Us.
Did you get a cut that you LOVE? Is your color FABULOUS? Did you have so much fun in here last time you were in that you didn't want to leave? Don't keep it a secret! Share it with the world! Websites such as Portland City Search, Yelp, and Google all have opportunities for you to tell everyone how awesome your favorite salon is. There is even a place on our Facebook page where you can leave a recommendation. The Internet is the new phone book, so when people search for a local salon, help to make sure we are on their radar!
3. Tell Everyone.
Tell Your Friends. And your Family. And your Co-workers. And your Co-workers' friends. Yes, all of them. We would LOVE to have all of them as clients. We promise we won't share your secrets or tell if you've come in to get your roots done when you were home "sick". We will happily do your mom-in-law's hair (but, no, we won't shave her bald!). We have referral cards you can keep handy to make it easy, AND they offer your friend 10% off their first visit, or hand them a regular business card or just write our number down for them. Any way you slice it, we'd love to see your friends!
Your referral and recommendation is always the highest compliment that you could ever pay us, as it is what keeps our doors open and allows us to do what we love doing; So, thank you, for sharing with the world. We are always honored to have your trust!
Randall Children's Hospital Toy Drive in Celebration of Mykayla!- Thursday, February 21, 2013
Friends of Ritual might remember that back in August, we held a head-shaving event for our seven year old friend, Mykayla. Two of our own staff members and countless other people- many of them complete strangers- came in to shave their heads in support of young Mykayla who has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. It was a fabulous event, for a great cause.
As Mykayla continues on with her cancer treatment at Randall Children's Hospital, we want to show her the continued love and support of the community she lives in, and we thought, how better that to collect toys for the hospital that she is receiving her treatments at? Randall Children's Hospital does great work and they have exceptional staff. One of our front desk coordinators, (Skyler) had open heart surgery there when she was a year and a half, so we know first hand what kind of work they put out!
We encourage YOU to get involved by checking out the WISH LIST and going on a shopping spree! Get you family involved, grab your friends and enlist the help of your co-workers. Everyone can appreciate how difficult it would be for a family to have a child in the hospital. Let's brighten the day of the many families and children for which this is a reality!
All toys can be brought to Ritual Hair Design between now and April 16th.
Everyone Needs a Pep Talk Occassionally!- Monday, January 28, 2013
It's nearly the end of January, have you stuck to your New Year's Resolutions?
It's so easy to get distracted by the daily routine, as well as the things that pop up that aren't routine. Sometimes the best laid plans get tossed to the side because of the 'unexpected'. I've had a string of those days lately.
This is finals week for two of my kids, so after church on Sunday, when I had planned on cleaning the house and cleaning the carpets, I instead sat at the dining room table for 7 hours, teaching our youngest everything that she ever needed to know about the American Revolution, that she should have learned IN SCHOOL! When we started studying, she couldn't answer even one of the questions or give me any detail about the topics she was to be tested on just 24 hours later. By the end of the night, we were both exhausted, but she could not only answer every question correctly, but she could speak, in detail about each event. Seriously, perhaps, I WAS meant to be a teacher (j/k!!! No thank you!).
So, today, I wake up, planning to get the kids to school, get my butt to the gym and come back, clean my carpets, hit an 11:15am appointment and then come back and clean the house before my kids get out of school and need to be picked up. Great plans- until the car decides it doesn't want to keep running once it's started. All plans are out the window as we shift who is driving the kids and focus on getting an appointment at the car dr. and borrowing my mom-in-law's car so I can try to get to my 11:15am appointment (forget the gym, THAT class was at 9:15am!).
I am telling you this NOT so that you can know that I am super up on the American Revelution, Andrew Jackson & The Whiskey Rebellion AND my car has left me stranded. I am telling you this because sometimes it's easy to feel like it is just ME that these things happen to, so I know you must feel like that too. Life happens to all of us. It's not just me, it's not just you. When the day's plan gets tanked, it can be difficult to feel like you are making progress on your goals and resolutions. It would be easy to give up, but if you REALLY want to make things happen, you need to push forward! Tomorrow it is back to work after what has turned into a weekend completely unlike the one that I planned, so I decided I needed a little pep talk, and it's just too dang awesome NOT to share. Jump on the road that leads to AWESOME, and have yourself a great week~
Last year, my sister was really struggling
financially and so many of my friends, family and Ritual clients gave
generously so that she could provide a great Christmas for her kids. One
person (a stranger) heard what we were doing and stopped
by the salon with some toys and a heavy box for my sister and just said she wished my sister a Merry Christmas. She wouldn't leave her name, but
said she was friends of a friend of mine. Curious, I peeked in the
box. There was a little book called "The Christmas Jar" in it and the
rest was full of money, mostly coins with some bills. There was easily a
couple of hundred dollars in coins & bills. I couldn't believe that
a stranger would just give away so much money to a stranger. More
curious still, I went to the bookstore and found the book after
Christmas and read it. It inspired me to start my own Christmas Jar. A
jar that you throw your spare change into all throughout the year, with
the goal of finding someone to give it to right before Christmas. Well,
today was the day. I didn't get fancy with my "jar", but it was nearly
full. I was counting on God to lead me to a person who either really
needed the money, or who really needed an act of kindness. Skyler and I
went to Fred Meyer this morning and had barely gotten in the door when I
ran into a person who has been in the salon a couple of times. Her son
died this year and as you can imagine, she has had a difficult time
coping. In addition, her water heater went out and money is
excruciatingly tight. She started telling me how she had just purchased a
couple of gifts for her grand kids, but couldn't afford much. As she continued
talking, I could sense the sadness in her heart. I said, "I don't know
if you believe in God," to which she replied, "Yes, but God and I haven't been talking much lately." "Well," I said, "I believe that God put you right here, right
now in front of me because I came here to give this jar to someone. I
didn't know who it was going to go to, but I knew it was going home with
someone from this store today. I think God intended it to go to you." There were tears, there were hugs and there were many thank you's. I
cannot imagine how my Christmas could get any better than it was this
morning. I already have my next jar ready to be filled. I would
encourage you to find the book and to read it. Maybe you will feel
inspired to start your own jar. Blessings to each and everyone of you this Christmas season.
Doves for Newtown, Conneticut- Thursday, December 20, 2012
The shootings in Newtown left many of us angry and hurting for the losses that the families are having to endure, but also for the loss of security that we all are feeling. If you can't send your first grader to school and know they will be safe, if you can't go to the mall, if you can't go to the movies... These conversations were had frequently at the salon in the days following the shootings.
What do you do for the families, all 27 of them, that lost their loved ones? What action or words are possibly large enough to give comfort? I know that there are none, but at the same time, it must be a comfort, although perhaps a small one, to know that so many people across the country stand with these families. So, for my comfort, some action was needed.
I cut these doves out one by one from the pages of an old Hymnal that a client gave me. I sent them off to Newtown, not knowing who would open the envelope, not knowing if the families would ever see them, but hoping that the message would be clearly delivered.
You are not alone in your grief.
Well, THAT’S Random!- Tuesday, September 18, 2012
For quite a while now, Thursdays have been a day where, given the chance, I
would do some random act of kindness for someone I didn't know. Usually this
entails going through the Starbucks or Sonic drive thru and buying the coffee or
lunch of the person behind me. It's a fun thing to do and it just makes me feel
good that my small act likely surprised someone and brightened their day. My
little acts started after reading the book Life As A Daymaker. My darling friend, Shauna who is the owner and creator of Lemon Kissed Jewelry started a movement of her
own a while back with her Random Act of Kindness... Then, last year at this
time, we decided that all of us at Ritual wanted to be in the business of making
people's day, so we decided to leave note cards out & about that invite the
lucky finder in for a complimentary haircut, no strings attached. We had so much
fun meeting the people who found our cards that we decided to do it again! We'll
be posting pictures of these notes on our facebook page and our webpage with any
fun stories that happen along the way.
We encourage all of you to be a Daymaker too. Get creative with finding a
way to make someone smile. We promise that it will make you feel good too!
"Don't
be yourself - be someone a little nicer."
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook,
1966
