Resources for shopping locally!

One of my Twitter contacts has pointed me to this site: http://www.shoplexington.com/

It's a directory for shopping locally in Lexington, but doesn't seem very fleshed out in terms of businesses for Lexington---yet. Still, a good starting point!

Also, don't forget Local First Lexington and iValueLocal!

Printing supplies check up

Sorry for the delay on my posting...last week I was on a fabulous journey to the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN. I had a blast exploring the vibrant local scene there, as well as attending an awesome wedding at the Minnesota Science Museum!

So...printing supplies. I had a great lead to go to Hurst Office Supplies down at 257 E. Short St. The people there were very nice and friendly, and do indeed have printing and office supplies, but they usually sell in bulk to offices. Being an average person off the street in need of 40 envelopes rather than 500, they couldn't really help, although they did give me three envelopes for free that happened to be sitting on their desks. (I told you, they were really nice!) I was disappointed, but if I ever need to supply an office, I'll be getting an account with them!

So, I ended up finding the pens and envelopes I needed at Southland Dollar at 285 Southland Dr. It's probably not the first place you'd think of for office supplies, but they sure had pens and envelopes!

My quest for printer ink continues. Onward!

Where can I find printing supplies?

My quest for clothes hangers continues, with the only useful tip being to check out the dry cleaners. We certainly have plenty of independently-owned dry cleaners here in Lexington, and they probably have an abundance of clothes hangers. But wooden ones? Probably not.

But, it is a new week, and I'm on a new quest: printing supplies! This includes paper, ink, and really anything else that qualifies as "office supplies" because I believe you really can't have too many office supplies (meaning: I can never find a pen when I need one).

So, Lexington, where is the best independently-owned business featuring office supplies?

Where Can I Find Clothes Hangers?

Now that the weather has gotten slightly more nippy in the Central KY area, I'm starting to seriously ponder the need for changing out my summer clothes for my winter ones. Somehow, though, the clothes that require clothes hangers in my winter wardrobe have begun to radically outnumber the actual numbers of coat hangers I possess. How this happened is anyone's guess.

So, this leaves me needing coat hangers. In the past, I might have made a quick and dirty trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, or (gasp!) Wally World. Especially if they had those cool, slim, felt hangers that make me feel more organized and sophisticated than I actually am. But I'm trying to leave those days behind and make a good faith effort to find some hangers locally.

Where should I go?

Local in Lex is born!

Hello Hello!

I'm always on the lookout for things I can do to support local, independent businesses, but I'm often at a loss on where I can go locally for simple, everyday things. These are the things that present the greatest temptation to head over to a chain or big box store, or (worse!) buy online. With this blog I'll present an item I'm looking for each week, then do a little research. At the end of the week I'll let you know if I found a local place to get it, and where to go. Hopefully I'll find a few unknown small businesses, or maybe even find an opportunity for a small business that doesn't exist yet!

I will definitely need your help and suggestions on where I can go. Let's band together, Lexington!