So the latest news around Orange Tree headquarters is that we are homeless. I mean, we never really had a home in the first place, considering we never signed a lease anywhere, but we thought we were at least close to having somewhere we could call the official Orange Tree location. 

And we were close to that point. Like, as close as you can absolutely get until you are legally bound for the next five years of your life. My mom was so sure that this place was going to be “it” that we were about to have that address put onto our stationary and all of our checks. Thank goodness we didn’t because when it came time to sign the contract on the dotted line, she changed her mind. 

And rightly so. 

The location she was interested in is within a new shopping area here in our town; it’s a very upscale, outdoor “lifestyle center” or something fancy like that, with restaurants, shops, and there’s even a hotel going under construction soon. There are both national chain stores (like Eddie Bauer) and local mom and pop shops, which we thought would be perfect for our little Orange Tree. However, we were wrong.

We came to find out, throughout the whole lease negotiation process, that this maybe isn’t the best place for a small locally-owned shop. Our first clue was the lease itself – it was about as thick as Webster’s dictionary, obviously not meant for a small business such as hers. And it was all legal jargon that the normal person cannot even comprehend; however, thanks to the many dollars spent with attorneys, we figured out that most of that jargon has to do with the landlords wanting to take EVERY! SINGLE! PENNY! WE COULD MAKE! away from us in some form of payment or another.

It was clear to us that being able to succeed at that particular location probably would be impossible. All of our inflow of cash would be quickly poured into the landlord’s pockets. 

So anyway, after months of all this lease-negotiation rigamaroll, and literally at the meeting where my Mom was supposed to sign the lease, she changed her mind. And she stood her ground. And she gave those people a piece of her mind. 

She is now in the process of looking elsewhere for a place where Orange Tree can unload all of its inventory baggage (really good stuff, might I add). There is already one location she is looking into that looks much more promising and would better allow us to, you know, MAKE MONEY, which is most often a very high priority in the business world. 

Throughout the past couple of months there has been much stress, questioning, praying, and, well, stress. However, I think we are all grateful that we can now rest assured that it just wasn’t meant to be. And without all the screwing around we’ve been through, we might have ended up in a place where we really weren’t supposed to be.