This is a difficult post for me to write, so please bear with me in case I begin to ramble.

In March 2010, I went in search of land for a friend and instead, found myself instead considering getting land for myself. It was then that I found a quaint parcel at Lionheart Estate and purchased it for what would become Jolly Farm. To date, I am the only person who has ever owned that parcel and it’s the same one Kitty Cattery sat on up until today.

There’s been a lot of talk about our 50% off sale and us retiring all of the products on our shelves. We’ve left people in the dark because to be honest, we were a little in the dark ourselves. A lot has been going on in real life for the Kitty Cattery team – people moving, life altering situations and such. We knew we wanted to phase out Kitty Cattery and work on a more broad picture, but when we pulled back and tried to look at a bigger picture, we realized that the sky was really the limit for us.

We’re a really fortunate team. When you combine the talents of 3 people who all bring something to the table: Sculpting, Poses, Scripting, Building, Texturing and Marketing…. well, you get one hell of a team who can conquer almost any project. I’m not trying to be boastful… the point is that I recognize without Alia Whitfield and Scar Ayers, I’d just be Sookie Slafford… all on my lonesome, buying sculpts on the marketplace and doing what I could with them to realize a vision. I’d be Jolly Farm. haha

And so we kept coming up with store ideas and names for those stores. We went through some concepts that we liked for a week and others that didn’t last 24 hours. It was frustrating, to say the very least and our indecisiveness is what made our retirement sale drag on as long as it did. We’d planned to be working on products and have the new store completed by now, but all of the obstacles really hindered the creativity.

And so here we are, the evening before our tier expires and we’re watching the hours tick away. We realized there was no sense in paying for more time. The sale has been dragged on long enough and the hype about it is long since exhausted. So tonight, we will be picking up Kitty Cattery and all of the products (excluding the cat shoes) will be retired. When we’re done picking up everything, the land will be given back to Lionheart Estate, broken back up into its original parcels and sold.

…that’s the hardest part.

So what happens to Kitty Cattery? Well, the spirit of the store will never die. It lives on through the introduction of our new brand. Sure, we’ll probably make some items for pets and I’m already busy working on items related to Meeroos, but what you’re really going to see is all of our creativity and quality work channeled into furniture, pre-fabs and even some accessories. That sounds so boring and generic, but I assure you, it’s going to be quite amazing.

We’ll be leaving Lionheart Estate. I’ll still work there of course… it’s just that we feel we’ve outgrown it. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Lionheart. But with my Chamber of Commerce election period having technically ended at midnight, I am no longer tied down to its community. Instead, we’ll be getting more land elsewhere with the intent to expand at some point to owning a full sim.

I’m sorry to just give more promises with nothing much to show for it. It’s coming, we promise. Seriously, we swear! I thought about announcing the store name and showing off the logo tonight, but then felt uncomfortable showing just that. I promise the next time I talk about the new store, there will be more to show you.

So Long, Farewell. I’ll always miss Lionheart. It wasn’t just a slab of land for my business, a place for my bunnies, cats and meeroos to breed… it was home.