Just Act Casual

Well, we’ve arrived at my very least favorite time of year - the two weeks before Thanksgiving. And honestly, you would think the WEEK OF THANKSGIVING would be my least favorite, right? But here is the thing…the week of Thanksgiving is horrendously stressful and exhausting, but it is pretty clear cut - we bake the pies, we box the pies, we organize the pies, and we sell the pies. And we try to keep our sanity, yo.

But the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving…well, there isn’t much to do but stew around about it all. We can’t make anything or really do anything except work every day like an enormous event isn’t headed our way. And since I’m the keeper of the information, like the order counts and an early sketch in my mind of how it will all play out, I mainly feel like a monster is breathing on my neck all day long. Does that sound weird?

But before we make a few thousand pies, we need to make a few thousand Jelly Jar pies over the next seven days. Today we did a fun order for an insurance company in Iowa who sent a single Jelly Jar and a package of coffee to 50 different people. This is our first time shipping a single Jelly Jar pie - normally they are shipped by the six pack - and it was actually much easier and cuter than we expected. And if you watch our Instastories, then you likely got to watch Jeanne load 50 boxes into a borrowed Hyvee cart and roll them directly down the sidewalk and into the UPS store with ZERO shame or embarrassment about a cartload of packages. Here is a fun fact about Jeanne: SHE LOVES A PACKING TAPE GUN. Early this morning, she told me she was excited to package each box up and tape them all because she’s a weirdo. (Though in her defense, I didn’t mind creating the shipping labels because people have interesting addresses. I guess that makes me a weirdo too. We are quiet the duo.)

(And while we were working on all those jars and boxes and had packing shred everywhere, we decided it might be cute to stock in the store a cute box with a single jar in it for a quick and cute gift during the holidays. And really, it would be. Though we need boxes, jars, determination, and commitment to the concept…all things in dubious supply over the next six weeks. I have high hopes though.)