Nicole, aka My T-Shirt Lady
Posted on August 25, 2021 by Ching under Life.
It was around this time last year when I first got connected with Nicole. She owns Simply Charming Designs. I would not have known about her had it not been for the amazing work that she did on Ben Meyer and Traci Grandfield’s league uniforms. They had Ben’s company logo put on their tops and bottoms. As someone who is obsessed with being “matchy matchy,” I immediately had outfit envy. I asked Ben who did it for him and asked for their contact information.
That was the start of my relationship with Nicole. Over the past year she’s completed several shirt projects for me. I’ve even referred several people her way including my friends Karen, Tiffany, and Kimberly (and probably a few others). I know Seth has gotten a few shirts from her also. Every time someone asks me about customizing shirts or adding prints or logos on them, I send them to Nicole.
The funny thing is, as I’m referring all of these people her way, we’d never actually met in person — that is, until recently. My friends always asked, how are you getting your stuff? I told them we usually just leave my shirts on her porch and then I pick them up the same way when they’re finished. Payment is through Venmo, so we’ve never seen each other. She’s usually not home when I’m dropping off or picking up (actually, it’s usually Brian dropping off or picking up because he works on that side of town), but she doesn’t have to be. I’ve never felt it necessary to meet her to do business together. All I know is that she does excellent work and she is quick and that is good enough for me.
Anyway, Kimberly had some shirts done a few months ago and actually got to meet Nicole. Of course I felt FOMO. I’m thinking, I’ve given this lady so much business and yet I’ve never met her in person. I think it’s time we met.
Fast forward to a year and nearly $500 in projects later, we actually had the opportunity to meet. Brian and I were on our way to dinner. I needed to drop a couple of shirts off to be printed and she just happened to be home.
Meet Nicole, the most awesome t-shirt lady ever. Over a dozen shirts later, we finally met! I was like, we have to take a pictures to commemorate this!
I dug up our transaction history on Venmo and my very first payment to her was on September 3. We would have been working on those designs and chatting back and forth over Facebook Messenger around this time last year.
T-shirts are mostly what I need but Nicole can do more than just shirts. She can do mugs, tumblers, notebooks — she can print on just about anything. If you have a project that you need completed, please be sure reach out to Simply Charming Designs on Facebook. She is super awesome to work with. I highly recommend her. Anyway, I am just one of many happy customers. Hire her for your next personalized or custom project and join the club!
Until next time. GNG.
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Rotary Club Changes, Events, Etc.
Posted on August 24, 2021 by Ching under Community.
The Andover Rotary Club board put me in charge of putting together our programs this cycle so I hit up some friends to come visit and present to the club. Matt Mayfield came out last month to talk about the Senior Services of Wichita.
I’ve also hit up some old friends from the Twitter days to come and speak. Last month we had Suzanne Perez (KMUW) talk about the annual #ReadICT reading challenge and then last week we had Denise Neil (Wichita Eagle) come out to promote her new book “Classic Restaurants of Wichita.”
One of the major changes for this year is relocating our meetings to Butler Community College. For as long as I’ve been a member (about seven years), we’ve always met at Terradyne Country Club. I was told that the meetings have always been there since the club’s founding in 2003. Anyway, there were several factors that led to the move and it took months of deliberation. However, as of August 2021 and, for the foreseeable future, our meetings are officially at Butler Community College. I made all the updates I could make to both our club website and also our Facebook page. It’s not perfect but all references to meetings at Terradyne Country Club have been, for the most part, removed.
Despite this major change, some things remain the same. Haus of Brews will still be our premier fundraising event and it’s back this year! We couldn’t have it last year because of the pandemic and everyone missed it. This year we are having the event on September 25 at Treescapes (same venue as always). I feel like everyone is excited and ready to have this event again. In fact, we have already sold a few tickets. Early bird tickets are available online for $35 through September 10. After September 10, tickets will be $50 each. If you buy yours online, put “Ching Brubaker” in the member referral box so I get credit for the ticket sale. Hope to see you all then!
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Sunday Fun-Day at the Belmont
Posted on August 23, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink.
The Belmont is hands-down our current favorite happy hour destination. They have this drink there called “rackhouse” that is like an old fashioned and Brian absolutely loves it.
I sometimes wish he would look at me like he’s looking at this this drink. =P
No happy hour trip to the Belmont is ever complete without the cheese course.
I have tried all of the specialty cocktails they make at the Belmont and they are all very good. The “calumet” is my favorite but I also like the “violets femmes” (pictured above without the signature flower). I know the flower is just for decoration but this drink is never as good without it.
We decided to get dessert this time which was a shortbread cookie with chocolate mouse and strawberries. It was good but I think I would have preferred an actual strawberry shortcake and had this on a moist sponge cake (pound cake?). If only I knew how (or had a desire) to make my own stuff then we wouldn’t have to go out and rely on the food that others make. Until next time, GNG.
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Nineteen Years and Counting
Posted on August 19, 2021 by Ching under Relationship.
We didn’t have any major plans for our 19th wedding anniversary — just dinner and a ball game. We went to Carrabba’s, our “go to” place for celebratory dinners.
We ordered our usual meatball starter. It’s really good there.
Don’t mind the less than enthusiastic look on Brian’s face. He always looks this way no matter how thrilled he is on the inside.
I’m so glad they finally added the chicken piccata on the the menu. They offered it as a takeout entree during the pandemic but it wasn’t on the dine in menu so you couldn’t order it at the restaurant. Now I can finally get it there. Hurrah for that!
After dinner we went to catch a baseball game at Riverfront Stadium. It was our first time in the Evergy suite.
I’m glad we skipped dessert at the restaurant because they had these delicious brownies there. Actually, had I known there would be food in the suite, we could have skipped our dinner plans altogether.
The stadium is beautiful but I don’t think that many people are into baseball these days. Here are a few more pics that I snapped while there. It seemed pretty dead for a Saturday night.
The company in the suite was pretty good, though. (With the lovely Caroline and Chet Kelley in the pic below.)
This anniversary weekend was super uneventful, which is probably a good thing. It’s a far cry from our 9th wedding anniversary celebration ten years ago. That was a little nuts. Anyway, I’m looking forward to a fabulous year of traveling — now that Brian is finally fully vaccinated (best anniversary present ever) — starting with a trip to Jamaica in January. Details are listed below. Hope you all can join us!
P.S. When you book, tell Jay or Becca that Ching sent you so I can get referral credit. LOL. Until next time, GNG.
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Charity Tournament at Chicken N Pickle
Posted on August 17, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
The Downtown Wichita Y’s Men’s Club held a super fun charity tournament at Chicken N Pickle on Saturday. It was a full day affair with competitive teams in the morning and social teams in the afternoon.
Erica and I reversed matched with our Electrum tanks.
Here are some pictures from that day. Above pic is with my partner Chris Wilson and Karen Fox. Karen played in the social but came early to hang out and watch.
Here’s another picture of the three of us with Lesli Toubassi.
Here are some action shots of one of my favorite pickleball couples, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance.
Here are some action shots of Greta Siemens and Ramon Lozano.
Here are some action shots of Hanbeen You and Kim Knotts.
Here are some action shots of Lori and Dave Belew.
Lesli, Jenny Cole, Scott Wolford, and Tiffany.
Even after we were eliminated from the tournament, we hung around and watch all of the awesome matches. Here’s Chris with Dave Belew (and his wife Lori Belew in background, deeply concentrating on something).
Many of us stayed to watch the championship match.
Scott did a great job of recruiting teams. Lots of really good pickleball players came out to play in this charity tournament which is not usually the case. It’s pretty rare that benefit tournaments attract real pickleball players. You usually end up playing with mostly beginners and maybe a couple of teams who know how to play. I think that’s why the matches were so fun to watch.
I didn’t end up staying for the afternoon portion because Brian and I had plans that night (dinner and baseball) so I didn’t get to watch Karen and her partner Ian Carr take down the championship of the social (drink in hand) tournament. Janelle Lindeman and her partner Devin Hansen took second.
I think everyone had a great time overall. Kudos to the Downtown Wichita Y’s Men’s Club for putting on such a wonderful event. I would totally do this again. Until next time. GNG.
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