#2,692 Mississippi Mercantile Day 2.

It was another amazing day spent with other Mississippi makers and small business lovers like us, and I was telling the ladies of Mississippi Magazine who put the market on that it really felt like an enormous family reunion. I hugged so many people with stories of how they were connected to Laurel, to our families. I met one family who lived in our house in 1996 and brought photos to show me! I had never seen photos of it from then! Look at our foyer!

And our master bath!

Ben’s dear old friend Chase and his family even came to see us! Chase is who persuaded Ben to go to Ole Miss. Ben and I met on December 7, 2004 and on December 29 I decided to ditch my SCAD scholarship to follow him to Ole Miss. Chase ended up changing his plans and going to school at Belhaven but by then we had committed to going to Oxford where we found our lifelong friends Mallorie and Josh. Because I met Mallorie there and introduced her to my cousin Jim, we once determined that Chase is the reason our life turned out the way it has, the reason Mal and Jim met, married and had Lucy, the reason we found our friends who became our business partners in Laurel Mercantile. Life is a fascinating patchwork quilt and I’m thankful we got to spend some time with this guy today who held so many pieces of the quilt together without even realizing it and these cheesed out photos will make me laugh every time I look at them.

These two crazies got into a lot of trouble together when we were just college kids. They were a regular Mutt and Jeff.

We got to speak to an enormous crowd that gave me major butterflies!

And when it was all over I was grateful for some of our downtown Laurel family that were there with us.

So, obviously we had to celebrate with dinner at Berry’s–home of the world’s absolute greatest mac and cheese. If they ever make a cookbook I am buying a copy for everyone I know!