Yes and Amen
We took yesterday off from PJP and just between us, IT WAS A DELIGHT. Our work/life balance lately has been a dumpster fire and so to have two days off in a row was a gift that kept on giving. (I saw on Facebook last week that a local business I follow plans to be closed this entire week for vacation and honestly, I felt that in my soul.)
At any rate, here we are post-July 4th and that is like riding the PJP roller coaster and teetering at the top before a massive drop off. We are just staring down our busiest months of the year ahead and oh, a second store arrival. The nice part about documenting our life on the internet is we can look at what else we were doing this week in all the previous years for a little perspective:
2020: I was having a meltdown because a local news station used B roll of our storefront with a story about employer struggles with employee coronavirus exposure…even though PJP had no exposure. And honestly, this would still cause me angst because CORONAVIRUS.
2019: We were gearing up for a PJP garage sale at our Buttonwood location in advance of our move across the parking lot. And quite honestly, it is about time for another one. How do we collect so much stuff? (Though, this week I accidentally ordered a five gallon bucket of sliced strawberries instead of our regular five pound container of sliced strawberries, so that probably explains something. Also? Not sure what to do with five gallons of pre-sliced strawberries.)
2018: We purchased a large laminated map of the United States and endeavored to color in a dot to every location we’ve shipped pies to. I’m not sure we ever finished because after a review of our UPS account history, it was A LOT of places…and that was two years ago. We’ve been to all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Personally, I enjoy all the shipping labels for the unique destinations…but I’m not patient enough to color in all the dots.
2017: Speaking of Jelly Jars, we were shipping out 78 packs of Jelly Jars this week in 2017. And I was moving our household of 15 years into a new house, with Jeanne as our new neighbor across the road. We still call it it the PJP compound. Or Co-Dependency Circle. Either way.
2016: I was on vacation and Jeanne was captain of the ship. She was VERY worried about the cash register not working. She still has the same concerns when we leave on vacation. In general, she likes us to stay within the compound.
2015: We both didn’t work on that Saturday during this week of 2015 for the first time since opening in April 2014. Our hours then were only 9-1 on Saturdays, but we were super stressed at the prospect of not going to to the store for that short stint. Our hours are longer now, but it is still pretty rare to find one of us not here on a Saturday. Or if we aren’t, we are stressing about it. Apparently, some things never change…
