Knock On Wood.

If I had to guess, I'm pretty certain that every entrepreneur has a day or two a year when absolutely nothing is going particularly well and thus the entrepreneur has an existential breakdown and questions all her life choices.  Or maybe it is just me and now I've made this awkward.  Either way.

But suffice it to say, today at PJP Buttonwood was a rough go from start to finish.  I suppose we were just due for a day like that, right?  Perhaps the universe needed to remind us that we have so much to learn about what we do and an absolute day from hell is a stellar reminder that we are nowhere near perfect at this just yet.  Here's what slayed me today:

1. We had far too many pies on order for 10:30 am this morning than the capacity of our ovens or our sanity.  So while we were able to get them all baked, we didn't have much available for sale in our storefront until the afternoon...which causes me the sort of anxiety that could be featured in a pharmaceutical company television commercial.
2. We also had a million or so jars on order, give or take.  Each time I printed labels for the jars, I took a deep breath and willed the printer to not be out of ink.  Perhaps sensing the stress in PJP Buttonwood today, the printer cooperated.  I feel like that should be acknowledged, especially because we all know I'm going to need to go to Wal-Mart tomorrow and buy ink...because that's always how this sort of thing always goes.
3. It wouldn't be the holidays unless we need to stop and go to Hy-Vee least five times in one day while we wait for the Sysco truck to arrive.
4. In fact, we went for pecans TWICE.  By the time I bought nuts twice AND paid for the ones that arrived from Sysco, I spent just shy of one billion dollars.  I'm surprised the grocery stores don't just list "market price" next to the nuts like a fancy restaurant does with lobster.
5. I had an actual conversation with UPS today regarding a driver who left a shipment of Jelly Jar pies in a snow bank next to someone's driveway in Wisconsin last week instead of taking them to the door.  I CAN'T EVEN.  We will need to reship them tomorrow and I'm tempted to write "DO NOT LEAVE ME IN THE SNOW" on the box.  (UPS opened an investigation and we don't have the driver's side of the story yet.  In his defense, I probably would have done the same thing in a snowstorm.  But I am also afraid of getting stuck in the snow and driving in a truck with no door on it, so I'd be a pretty terrible UPS employee from the outset.)

Tomorrow looks to be better, so cheers to that.  Or what if I've jinxed us now?  Can we all please stop and knock on wood right now?  Thank you.