Oh North Carolina

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South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

We made it back home. I am sorry for being so quiet over the last few days, but I felt like we needed a break since we had been working non stop since arriving in Raleigh and neither of us felt inspired to sit down and force a post so why would we…nothing good comes out of forcing creative vision does it? It does not for us so I thought as we packed up and headed back home we would gather our thoughts and post as soon as the right thoughts came together. Hope you will forgive us 🙂

While we were in NC many of you probably know we were working on prep for launching Clyde Oak. We cannot wait to share more about this company in these coming weeks, but today I am just going to talk about how this business and the people behind it have placed such challenge and clarity on our creative process.

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

When Corey contacted us back in September to help him launch his business Clyde Oak as the voice of the New American Gardner, we were shocked and honored to have been seen as the right choice for something this amazing. Mike and I knew Corey prior, and Mike has been best friends with his brother-in-law since high school, so we knew the vision and expectation Corey places on anything he does. Having someone we admired as much as him ask us to do what we do best (when we were still defining that) felt like the biggest dream and challenge we could have ever been given.

So over the last almost 6 months we have been dreaming, developing, defining, designing, and working to make Clyde Oak happen. It has been amazing, eye-opening, and exactly the perfect project for Mike and I because the whole time we have been working with Corey we have been doing the same with our business and Corey has been a major catalyst for so many of the changes and new ideas behind where our business is going in this next year. There can be such  power in the right thing/person coming along at the right time and Clyde Oak has been that for us. So maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that though we hopped on the plane to Raleigh thinking this would be the cherry on top of the whole thing it instead was just the tip of the iceberg.

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

Creating and working day in and day out to make all this happen was exhausting but probably the most exhilarating and creatively energizing time of my career thus far. It made me realize that it was the people around us and the vision behind what we were working for that was making the whole experience so incredible. Mike and I had been trying so hard to feel settled on our new name and ideas for a business since January and for the first time as we executed and worked with Corey and the rest of the team we felt ourselves realizing everything we were questioning was silly and that our ideas were the right ones. It was a moment of clarity and affirmation we needed in order to move forward.

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

We returned home today and I feel this hole, kind of like leaving Summer camp, but in a different way than I have felt before. We are trying to figure it all out and what this next year holds after seeing the creative energy we have for what is happening with Clyde Oak and in Raleigh, but for now we are excited to launch this project that has become so personal and deeply emotional to us. We hope you all will see the passion we have for this project in what will launch in the next month. There is a lot of love going in to this one so all of your amazing comments on instagram have just made us feel so great about what we are doing.

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

South to the North  |  The Fresh Exchange

Now that we are back plan on reading a lot of new and exciting things. We have wanted to get back from our trip to begin launching many of these we are working on. In the next week we will be announcing our new business after having such clarity we felt it was time. Though we are still finishing the full website we thought it was about time to let the cat out of the bag so please hang on for that big news. Also all the amazing stuff we were shooting and creating in NC will be going live. We are so excited about how it has come together, the team we have worked with, and the big picture of what is coming in the future. So expect the next month of content to be sprinkled with reveals, announcements, how tos, and talks about our process as well as some GORGEOUS content. You are not going to want to miss all the goodness.

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