In Retrospect.
Like every other business, we’ve struggled with a sparsely staffed schedule. As you might guess, this means that me, Jeanne, Jason, our kids have filled in for all roles as needed. That’s precisely how I found myself at PJP for 16 hours on Saturday because we started early and I stayed for the afternoon shift and it reminded me of our early days when it was just Jeanne and I, EVERY SINGLE DAY AND ALL DAY. In retrospect, I have no idea how we pulled it all off except for sheer will of determination and stubbornness. In that vein, let’s look at all the things we’ve done on this date in previous years:
2020: We created a pie for the governor’s birthday party, which felt pretty fancy. The person ordering it was on the catering staff for the event and we have no idea if the governor ate it. (We choose to believe that he admired it, at a minimum.) We also had a New York Times bestselling author (Elin Hilderbrand) purchase a PJP t-shirt to be shipped to her. In the Six Degree of Kevin Bacon indicator, we must have been two degrees from Kevin, right?
2019: I wrote an homage to PJP Buttonwood as we moved the last of our things to PJP Nifong and did a final walk through on our old space with the landlord. I’ll forever have affection for that space, primarily because we lost a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in that space. There is a children’s clothing resale shop in that space now but I can’t bear to go because it needs to stay in my mind just the way we said goodbye that day.
2018: I shared some thoughts about teaching my daughter, then in middle school, about the value of saying no when she didn’t want to do something…and not feeling bad about it or justifying the no. I’ve always struggled with it and my only hope is that she figures it out far before Jeanne and I ever did. Now she’s in high school and light years beyond the person I was at 16. Thankfully.
2017: We celebrated the four year anniversary of this blog, which means that now I’ve been blogging for EIGHT YEARS.
2016: We hosted three baking parties, a pie tasting, and shipped 30 boxes of Jelly Jar pies…all in one week. We were some wild and crazy girls back in our day.
2015: A customer was planning to pickup 10 pies at 9 am and we didn’t realize it until 8 am. Bwahahahaha. Rookie mistakes. (No worries, we finished on time!)
2014: Our menu board was installed at PJP Buttonwood, five months after opening. Sounds like us, for sure. Our current store doesn’t give us the same wall space to have that same menu board, but I do miss the vibe of it.
2013: Jeanne says to me: “Hey, we should open a store and bake pies together!” Ahem.
