My love for thrift stores, second-chance items, and shopping for treasures started very early in St. Louis, Missouri. My parents divorced when I was four, and my mother Ethel Mae raised me as a single mom — the oldest girl in a southern family — in a 13-room home. She managed everything, and we looked great.

I had four years of private art lessons as a child — not offered in school, so my father Henry paid for them separately. That is where the eye came from. Ethel Mae gave me resourcefulness. Henry gave me the art. And the name.

I went shopping with all the beautiful women in my life because that is how we bonded. They talked to me, taught me, and loved on me the whole time. I would say with excitement — “Tell me when you're going thrift shopping because I want to go.”

One of those women was Alene Clay — my son's grandmother, and one of the closest women I have ever known. We both loved thrift shopping. She is part of why this shop exists.

In the divorce settlement I received an allowance I had to manage myself. School supplies, field trips — everything came out of that. I learned to budget, to make decisions, and to find more value in secondhand than in retail. That was not a limitation. That was the education.

I always wanted a secondhand shop as a child. The plan was simple: my shop on the first floor, live on the second. I went to Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri and earned degrees in Business Management and Marketing with a minor in Sociology. That was the plan. Life had another plan. Now I'm coming back to the original one.