Shoppe News

Well, we are feeling rather embarrassed. We have been seriously slacking off lately.

But let me rephrase this, and hopefully shed some light on the reasons why: I use the term 'we' all the time because in reality, often my dh helps me pull off deliveries (even if it is only by watching our two beautiful daughters), and because without his support I could not make this business happen at all.

But in terms of the day to day grind of getting things done with The Thistle, it comes down to one person -- me. And as much as I love (!) creating the tea blends and designing the labels and creating the verbiage for the labels and keeping inventory and ordering more and more herbs to make the blends with and roasting the vanilla bean and shredding and grinding the roots and folding the boxes and bagging every single bag and printing the labels and applying the labels and dusting the shelves (nod to Rose! lol) and delivering the teas and debating about what to keep, what to phase out (be still my heart! I love all my teas) and don't even get me started on making the Balm! That's a whole other looooong process in itself -- all of this takes time. And time, people, is a precious thing in my world.

Now, I'm not complaining -- I'm whining. I'm kvetching. Because while I'm doing all of this, I'm also raising my two daughters. Let's just say they are a handful! I'm overwhelmed, I admit it. I used to be the Queen of Organization, the Duchess of Get R Done, the Priestess of Right On Time Perfection.

As any mother out there reading this knows, the quickest way to learn what your weak spots are, or how much you need to let go of deeply-inbred Type-A control issues, is to have a child. For me, my Achille's Heel is sleeping. I need a lot, and small children and sleeping well or regular simply do not go together in one sentence. So I have become a rather drawn out experiment in sleep-deprivation and let me tell you, it works! You can watch a person completely unravel if you simply interrupt their sleep on a regular basis (don't try this at home, folks!). This means that it takes me twice as long to accomplish the most mundane tasks. So that's my excuse for slacking.

Before you doze off -- what I'm getting at here is that if it seems that my replies aren't quite fast enough in their turn around, if it seems like my website needs updating, if I'm simply not posting enough on my blog (well, you wouldn't know but my commitment is to post 2x a week, so I'm way behind), it's because I am swimming in tasks to get done on a daily basis. I'm having a hard time getting my dishes done, let alone dispensing the delicious teas & important pithy herbal and uplifting info that we all know and love.

And, tomorrow is my 40th birthday -- I'm thinking that maybe I have finally earned a break.

Drink deep, get out there and love your life!