In Good Company...
Last Thursday, Jeanne wrote you a lovely Jeanne-ology post and just before she hit send to email it over to me…our entire neighborhood lost power until the wee hours of Friday morning. Despite her best efforts, she can’t find it anywhere in her email and I believe that with all my soul because Jeanne and technology mix as well as oil and water. So who knows what she had to say, but I’m certain it was entertaining because she has been on a tear of new ideas and unique observations lately.
We’ve been working ridiculously hard at PJP lately, primarily because we are busy (thankfully) and also because we are short staffed (as expected). Let’s check in with previous years, so I can keep my perspective:
2020: We posted about National Chocolate Bourbon Pecan pie day and someone replied “I don’t care.” I analyzed her profile long enough to figure out that I didn’t care about anything she posted, so it all worked out. Today someone commented our “pies are God’s pies” on Instagram and it made us laugh and feel pretty special too.
2019: PJP Nifong was professionally painted, just as we settled on a move-in date from PJP Buttonwood to PJP Nifong. We chose Sunday, September 8th - Jeanne’s birthday. So basically, we got her a store to celebrate. I hope she liked it.
2018: At the time, we were open Tuesday-Friday and we started to tussle with the idea of opening on Mondays. In the end, we shied away from the idea because it seemed overwhelming to be open six days a week. Spoiler alert: in 2019, we moved to six days a week and never looked back.
2017: We considered selling moon pies on the calendar dates with full moons. Bwahahahahaha. This sounds pretty spot on for us - creative ideas with no basis or follow thru. Also, we never actually sold moon pies on full moon days. Thankfully.
2016: We bought a Cricut machine to make cute graphics. I have no idea why we thought that was a solid idea, since Jeanne is technically challenged and I’m notoriously impatient for cutting graphics out using a complex crafting machine. I think the Cricut held our interest for a few weeks until we were too busy in the fall baking months to waste any time.
2015: Someone ordered 2,760 jelly jar pies. Ehhh…I do remember that because it involved tying 460 bundles of tiny forks at 3 am. That’s the sort of thing that sticks with you forever.
2014: Jeanne and her husband delivered the custom built pie display case to PJP Buttonwood that we still use to this day. It was a stunning upgrade from our previous merchandising displays. We actually have a meeting this Friday with a local woodworker who has a bid for building us a new display case for both stores and now I’m a little melancholy over it all because I remember how exciting that new display was back in 2014. Though, this woodworker also made the chair for the pope when he visited St. Louis and so our future pie displays will be in good company…
