92%

There is a void of any interesting news to report from PJP today, except that Jeanne purchased us both a jar of that new night cream that is mostly snail mucus but still all the rage in skin care.  And by mostly, I mean it is 92% snail mucus and I don't even know how to feel about that.  I had to close my eyes and try not to think about the snails while I put it on my face because anything 92% mucus feels well, VERY MUCH LIKE MUCUS.  And honestly, snails freak me out.  But with promises of "outstanding skin regeneration", well, PRIORITIES.  I'll let you know if either of us is younger looking by the weekend. With no other thoughts to discuss here tonight, I decided to take a quick look through our archives to see just what we were doing about a year ago today.  And apparently, we had just purchased a Cricut machine to make cute things for the shop.  BLESS OUR HEARTS.

As you might guess, we never really made anything cute for the shop...mainly because Cricut machines are only for crafters who have a clear vision and infinite patience (and we lack both).  I'm certain the extent of our inspiration was cutting out the word "pie" in various sizes and fonts and then maybe we taped them to the front window like the legit professionals that we are.  And then we packed up the Cricut machine and stored it away at my house.  When I moved this summer and noticed it in the box, I actively thought "huh, maybe I should try that again."  But that was a month ago and I still haven't done it, so it is safe to say that the Cricut crafting ship has sailed.

Curious to see what other projects we dumped after a few days, I took a look at blog posts from late August 2015.  And as that turns out, we were making 2,780 Jelly Jars pies for a customer.  OH, I REMEMBER THAT.  As in, oh hey, remember when we stayed up for two days and made 2,780 jars??  Good times.  I remember distinctively asking Mitch's girlfriend if she minded coming into work with him at 4 am to tie tiny forks with ribbons.  (Holla to Lindsey, for saying yes and saving our sanity that morning.)  I'm 92% certain that if someone walked in and ordered 2,780 jars tomorrow, we would be faster to finish than 24 months ago.  But I would bet the drama and the angst and 4 am fork tying would be about the same.  Because 2,780 jars is a lot of jars, right?

And finally, throwing it all the way back to 2015...our sign outside of PJP was installed.  SIX MONTHS AFTER WE OPENED FOR BUSINESS.  In retrospect, mounting the sign before opening day is exceptionally smarter than waiting for a sweet forever.  And I'll never figure out why it didn't occur to either of us to have the sign hung before our first day of business, though deciding not to is fairly in line with the way that both of us think...which makes me think it was intentional.  Or we probably didn't have the money for it, there's that too.  We also didn't have a menu board until enough people asked us what we did there (bake pies) and then what kind of pies (oh, all of them) and it dawned on my mind that a menu board would be super helpful.

(I can't wait to eventually be interviewed by Guy Raz on How I Built This because our story of no menu/no sign/no forethought is the sort of story that guy lives for.)

And I'd like to close by saying that clearly we've both grown as people and as entrepreneurs over the past three years.  But I'm wearing a moisturizer comprised of 92% snail mucus in order to have younger looking skin.  So, there's that.