All Love. No Panic.

So, today we shipped 420 Jelly Jar pies (that's 70 six-packs of pie for those of you keeping track).  And the only honest thing to say about experience is GOODNESS, WE WERE A HOT MESS.

So, let's start with the obvious:  420 jars of pies is basically the twilight zone of pies...just when you think you are finished, you realize you have more to make.  Also, we typically struggle the most on Tuesdays because we start with a completely empty store and a full baking schedule.  (We typically ship on Wednesdays but the customer requested these be sent on Tuesday to arrive on Thursday prior to the weekend before the 4th of July.)

And because this isn't our first rodeo featuring too much to do in too little time and too tiny of a space, we've learned a few things along the way:  namely, prep work is supreme in succeeding.  So we had all of our shipping boxes folded, our forks tied, and our jar labels printed.  We only needed to make the jars, bake the jars, clean the jars, lid the jars, sticker the jars, fill the boxes, print the shipping labels, and seal the packages with tape.  Ahem.

I think we fell apart somewhere between the cleaning and the stickering of the jars.  I'm here to tell you that if you've never cleaned boiled over blueberry juice off glass, then just be thankful.  I'm going to email NASA and let them know if they need some sort of substance to make sure the panels on the space shuttle stay put, then I've got ideas and resources.  

So I guess the best question of all is:  WHY?  Why after over four years do we occasionally have a day where we just go off the rails?  The perfectionist in me finds it unacceptable, but the realist in me recognizes that a crew of people can only do so much in one day in 1,050 square feet without feeling rushed and marginally panicked.  Right?  Goodness, I hope so.  Even with that said, I can't stop thinking about how we could have adjusted to make it easier and faster and more low-key.  (Except I'm certain we are anything but low-key in anything we do.)

And all that said, we still had everything to FedEx before the cut off time, so right now 420 jars are probably preparing for takeoff.  We were so rushed, I didn't even have time to bid them a proper farewell on their journey to JFK.  I hope they cool down nicely and when they arrive on the 70 doorsteps in the greater New England area on Thursday, they are met with all the love we put into them.  And none of the panic.

Oh, and then maybe those 70 households will Google us and our analytics will love it.  Right?