Hi friends! I apologize for the lack of a newsletter last week. There is so much happening right now that my head is spinning. Somehow, the combination a major home renovation (which we are living in the midst of!), end of school craziness, and creating a café from scratch has proven to be A LOT. All wonderful things, but just hard to juggle it all. Basically I’m dropping balls left and right, but trying to keep a sense of humor, and show myself some grace in the process.
A few of the balls I’ve dropped recently:
-Missed the kids’ Field Day because I was in Atlanta doing a coffee tasting with my coffee wholesale partner for the café
-Realized I had booked a cooking class on the night of my kids’ school musical and had to scramble to get someone to cover the class (Thank you Kathryn!!)
-Did zero for Teacher Appreciation Week (other than donate to the class Venmo fund). And I love my kids’ teachers! Sorry teachers!
-Told my son, Grayson, I’d bring his lunch to school one day when we didn’t get it made before school and then got busy working and forgot. Just totally forgot. Poor kid was calling me from the office wondering where I was.
-We found a baby bird in our yard that had apparently fell from his nest. Evie really wanted to bring the bird inside and take care of it and I said no, it would be fine on its own. We found it dead the next day :( She was devastated.
-Accidentally locked myself out of my café space (the door automatically locks when it closes). All of my stuff was inside: my laptop, car keys, wallet, café key. I called the property manager and he said the building maintenance guy couldn’t get there to let me in for an hour and a half. The kids’ school pick-up was in 30 minutes so was like, guess I’m walking!! (Fortunately it’s only a 20ish minute walk.) I got there sweaty from speed-walking in 80-degree-temps and then had to coordinate a ride to get back to the café space to get my keys and car.
-I was a total grump on Mother’s Day and Evie at one point told me she was done celebrating me, because I don’t deserve it. (She could have a point?!)
But there are also things that I HAVE done, that I’m proud about:
-Picked a coffee wholesale partner for the café (Valor) which I’m SO excited about! More about this soon.
-Picked out all of the kitchen and coffee equipment for the café, and – with the help of my amazing architect – we have created a workable space plan for the cafe. It has been like a game of Tetris getting everything to fit in and meet building codes. But it’s going to be great! Next up: construction designs.
-Created a sense of semi-order in the new version of our home (where the kids sleep in the family room, my husband and I sleep in the office) with the help of the amazing Suddenly Simple Organizing. We lined our hallway with dressers for our clothes, and turned our entryway into a storage area for shoes and cleaning products and hanging bags. Weird, but functional. Our kitchen is half-covered by a giant sheet of plastic, and it’s very loud most of the time, but we are surviving!
-Made 10 packages of homemade granola this week and shipped them out to the amazing women in the Open Door Sisterhood mastermind group I’ve been a part of for the past year. It’s been a joy to be a part of this group, and we all created gifts to give each other at the end of our time together. Did I have time to do this?! No. But I wanted to bless them in the same way they blessed me.
-Helped out with the kids’ end-of-the-year parties :)
-Cooked some healthy meals for the family, which also felt like a win!
-Fit in a visit with my best friend - she met me in Atlanta for a quick 24-hr trip to visit several cafes and the Valor coffee roasters.
You win some, you lose some, and I’m here to tell you: You can’t do it all! At least not alone, and certainly not all at once. I’m trying to learn to give myself grace throughout this process, as I am truly juggling a lot.
Newsletter Update
One of the things I’ve realized that I can’t continue is the paid version of this newsletter. For the past 7 months, I’ve provided a Weekly Meal Plan, with simple, seasonal recipes and a prep plan to help you feed your family. I absolutely LOVE doing this, but now that I’ve switched gears into café mode (hoping to open in October!) I just don’t have time to do this every week. So I’ve paused all payments, meaning nobody will be charged going forward. I am going to continue writing - and definitely sharing some recipes! - but all content will be free from now on.
If you’ve paid for a full-year subscription and want a refund for the remaining months, please send me an email and I will figure out how to get you a refund. For the rest of you, please stick around because I’ll be sharing regular updates on the cafe process in my newsletter! I’m excited to share the journey with you all :)
As always, THANK YOU ALL for your support, encouragement, and for sticking with me - even when I drop the ball. This community means the world to me, and I’m excited to create something special for you all that you can visit in person!
XOXO
Anna