I've been cutting fresh strawberries for hours. Mady and I were honing our "haggling" skills and somehow ended up with 64 pints of berries. 64. 64 pints. Pardon the expression, but that's a lot of fucking strawberries. My fridge is full, my freezer is stuffed and my hands are stained red. I have two large mixing bowls with cut berries waiting to made into two jams: a strawberry and oatmeal stout spread and a three citrus-strawberry marmalade. I spent most of the afternoon listening to the Kinski double lp I picked up at the show and cutting citrus rind into slivers. i thought I'd get fancy and bought a new mandolin, and as you can expect- instead of slivering the lime rind I mandolined my thumb. You can bet your sweet ass that any jam that I nearly lose fingers over will have a higher ticket price. Blood, sweat, and tears baby- we don't mess around.
Chris and I had dinner outside and it was so beautiful. After such a hectic week, a nice dinner under a clear sky by citronella (ech) candle was exactly what I had in mind. We talked about the people we've been dating- his new gal is awesome. She's witty, beautiful and sharp as a razor. At our little dinner party, she made quite the impression when she walked in and immediately started chatting up the room. I like her. Chris likes her. The only downside thus far is that she has Sunday evenings off- and I'm a little partial to hanging with Chris on Sundays. I musn't be so selfish. Someday my prince (heh) will come and we'll watch the Simpsons together while Chris and his redhaired lady friend do whatever it is they do. Apparently she enjoys putt-putt. I told Chris " Good luck with that" (with a small nod to Lisa).
The business has been really taking off, and I am pleasantly surprised at how easy the start up has been. We've had so many offers for assistance and people have been really receptive to our products. I feel reinvigorated where I was beginning to lose steam. I didn't see much happening with us dumping all of our money into it just to sit for three hours at a little farmer's market. Now that things are picking up- I feel excited and ready to devote whatever time I can to maiking this take off. I made us a beautiful catalog and brochure this week, and have been working on databases of our COGS and inventory. Once I master the lost art (to me at least) of decent time management, I'll be getting somewhere. Yeah, good luck with that, right? .
I got into a horrible argument with my mother today. She wrote me an email saying that I don't call or come over enough, that I don't care, that if she were ever put in a nursing home I wouldn't visit. I wrote her back just saying that both of our phones have a dialing function and that if she keeps walking around griping that no-one is going to visit her in a nursing home, that nobody will. A bit harsh this may seem to those that do not know her, but to the those of us that have been on the recieving end of her anxiety and depression and problems in general- her martyr spiel is getting a bit worn out. Every week, it's some new tension, some more melodramatics- I guess I don't know how to deal with it, because i really don't want to any longer. That really isn't an option- so I guess once again, I'll give it a few days for her hormones to return to a normal level and maybe we can have a nice talk.There are so many medications to help women going through menopause deal with the discomforts- but what about the rest of us that have to deal with them? Hopefully at that point, I'll have wised up enough to move to Nepal and leave my family alone until I'm sane again. (Even though you know I won't) That's all for now.