Hello From My New Office

aka the extra sh!t room of the house. For so long, Luis and I have been using this room to store boxes, Bruja’s Bakery and Mazál things, leave extra shoes, all the stupid papers we have to keep, while I have been using the living room as my “office” since Luis has been home working. Then! I had the genius idea to clean this room up just the slightest bit that seeing the mess won’t give me hives and voila! my new office was born! And I have to say, I am really enjoying having a space of my own!

The desk is a lot more comfortable than the dining room table and I feel more productive here. I also enjoy NOT seeing the computer and my papers all over the dining room table when I walk into the house. It invites us to dump our junk onto the table all week so that by Sunday, it’s a compelte disaster and hey- it’s already Thursday and that table is still clean. So…long story short, I have a desk!

Honestly I started this post a week ago but then I lost my mojo halfway through. I will give you a little review of what it said: things were very busy at the shop.

We sold a lot of bagels. It was a really great last week. People were excited to come in and we had our busiest days ever.

We made pretty lemonades and they very very popular.

The weekend was very busy and add in the fun of having our refrigerator stop working AGAIN, it was a grand old time. Ok, the refrigerator was not fun. I cried on Sunday morning….like sobbing….when we saw that about 75 bagels were destroyed. I was also very tired from the day before. We worked about 16 hours. It’s not just the work that’s hard for me, but the STANDING for 16 hours. But Saturday was an insane, insane, insane day and by 4 pm, we hadn’t even started to make bagel dough for the next day. To make 275 bagels, we need about 2 hours of uninterrupted time, but with the shop still open, it was not uninterrupted. And then we had to make 40 mini challahs for a this new partnership (ok, not partnership, because it’s basically a one way thing that we have going on), and THAT took forever (side note: we went incognito to try these challahs at this place where they are being sold!)

So needless to say, we didn’t leave work until 10 pm on Saturday and then still had to organize delivery routes when we got home, shower, eat dinner (which was non-existant because we had NO food at home for the entire week. We actually ate salads every single night last week, which has never happened in all of the months of busy-ness that we have had so that tells you something). ANYWAY, I was exhausted after 5 hours of sleep and then to see that some of the bagels can’t be used…I was not happy. But we got over it and found a solution that worked out quite nicely and we all survived. I was a bit upset because I really wanted to close for the summer on a “high note” and in the morning, I was panicking, but I can safely say we ended the day on a high note. Sometimes I need to remind myself that what *I* feel (regarding that things are out of control/ slightly disasterous, that we are running around like chickens, that the bagels aren’t perfect), is certainly not what the customers feel. I have to remind myself that when I feel like OMG HALF THE BAGELS LOOK TERRIBLE BECAUSE THEY OVER FERMENTED TODAY WAS AWFUL!, that hey, we didn’t actually give those awful bagels to anyone and the customers only got the beautiful bagels and everything is f-i-n-e.

Despite being a little (or very) worn out, I am actually sad that we are closed for so long. I knew we were going to close in August, but closing half of July was just a decision we made out of thin air and while I definitely think it’s a great decision, I know these next few weeks will be quite long and I will be itching to get back fairly quickly once mid-August hits. The work is hard, and stressful (at times), but I do love it. Luis and I were just talking about how having my own business really fits my personality. I don’t like anyone telling me what to do or where to be, but on the contrary, I can be pretty bossy. I like to be creative (having your own business is the ultimate form of being creative. I get to control every aspect of this and it’s probably my favorite part). I deal with (some) stress well and having a business provides no shortage of stress. I am competetive with myself and (secretely, I think, with others)- because of this, I work hard to make things the best that they can be and to always be the BEST, whatever that means. I like to talk to people and help people out- I used to love working as a hostess and I was always the “nice hostess” that would try to get you the table you want for that special occassion, etc. Now I get the be the nice one every day 😉 And finally, I like projects. I like seeing this grow bigger and stronger every single day and know that it’s purely because of what we have put into it. I keep track of certain stats (online growth, financial growth, pageviews) and it’s so exciting to see how things develop in just a few weeks. I really don’t think I could ever have a desk job ever in my life.

There are also downsides to all of that, of course.

I can be overly competetive (with myself, with others). Solutions: unfollow every single person that I feel competetive with. If I just competetive and get nothing positive, goodbye. But also remember: just because there is a pretty girl in the room doesn’t make you less pretty.

I can focus too much on pleasing every single person. Solution: have “rules” and follow them

I can be a little….mean….to Luis (when being bossy) (but in regards to that, we are pretty good about being our work selves at work and our home selves at home, which is good. And also, he is very good at letting me be bossy. If he bossed me around the way I boss him around, this business thing would certainly not work.

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I am excited to have time to work on our website, work on the menu, work on the financial/Excel side of things and to gear up for a very busy year. Hey, and maybe Luis and I will write that book we have been talking about 🙂 It will be nice to have a break for a bit and then come back bigger and stronger!

In the meantime, I have a nail appointment in 23 minutes and then a bunch of errands to run before VACATION tomorrow!

Catch ya later.

I made nicoise salads! But with farrow and guindilla peppers. They were great.

Our disasterous kitchen last week. It (as well as the rest of the house) was to the point of being so messy that I didn’t have the energy to make it better so it just got worse and worse.