Milestone...

Last week, we finally achieved a PJP milestone MONTHS in the making.  MONTHS.  And before you get all on the edge of your seat like it is something aaaahhhhhmmmaaazzzing...like baking pies with Oprah on the cover of her magazine, rest assured...it isn't.  (But, Oprah, if you are reading this...we would totally bake pies with you.  Or for you.  Whatever.) But for us, this milestone is almost just as good.  And here it is:  last week, for the first time ever in PJP history, we had 9-inch pies, baby pies, Jelly Jar pies, and three-inch tarts bagged and ribboned ALL AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ON THE SAME DAY.  And people, we even jarred up Dutch Apple and Peach Praline topping for sale.  SERIOUSLY.

And look, I realize that celebrating that we baked all the pies when our job is to, well, bake all the pies might seem ridiculous to the casual PJP acquaintance.  But our history of struggling to be fully stocked in all different types of product is well documented.  (Cue here a loop of someone asking if we have any tarts for sale.  Because it happened almost every day.)

So what changed?  Well, for starters, our solid recognition that it needed to be done and it could be done if we just really put some significant thought into it...that was the big corner piece of the puzzle that anchored the whole endeavor.  And also, we've become so much faster at baking over the last year.  And most importantly, we've got a solid crew working with us each morning...making space our biggest hurdle toward getting it all done, rather than time.  That simple shift made all the difference.

And honestly, just between us, when we made it all happen for three days in a row and people were checking out with pies in all sizes...it felt a little overwhelming.  I would guess because it is a little easier for me to sort of stomp around about why we can't get a goal completed than rest in the joy of completing it.

Probably because I'm already thinking about what we are going to do next...