39%

It hardly seems possible that we've reached the end of August, right?  Jeanne and I consider September, October, November, and December to be our defining months of the year, so GAME ON.  We've been exercising our whisking muscles and foam rolling our pesky sciatic nerves, plus we've been working all year on baking more, working faster, and generally being smarter about what we do.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and whisper "We are ready, fall baking season", just in case the universe needs to hear it straight from us.  Please insert inspirational Pinterest quote here. Earlier this evening I was reviewing our month of August and comparing our sales this month to August 2015 (don't be too impressed, I was also watching Toddlers and Tiaras while I was working on the math).  We experienced 39% growth over last August.  And while I don't have an MBA and am generally riddled with self-doubt, even I can recognize that 39% growth is a serious achievement.  And what makes that 39% so noteworthy is that I can't really think of a day this month that completely slayed us (including $5 Friday...which was difficult but fun, and certainly not the most overwhelming day we've ever had).  Obviously, we had some long hours and worked some late events this month that left us questioning all of our life choices...but that is pretty standard issue at PJP.

Which is just a long way of saying that for this moment right here in time, I'm going to declare to the World Wide Web that we are actually getting better at what we do.  You heard it here first.  Insert two inspirational Pinterest quotes here.

On Saturday, we are providing pies in various sizes to four weddings planned at venues across Boone County.  Odds are that we will spend all of Friday night baking (as in ALL OF IT, including the 3 am part) and so everything I just said about being faster and smarter will feel just like a pipe dream (as most things do at 3 am).  But that will be Friday.  For today though, we are just holding on to the notion of 39%.  In the interim, we will just be over here pretending to be legit experts.  Ahem.

And wait, here's a whole heap of truth for us all as we head into the next few months...