The economy ate my wholesale accounts

I've been seeing a slow but steady change over the last couple of years in my business. It started with just a few of my retailers ordering less. Then, a few stores actually closed shop. Over the summer I had a fairly large customer stop sending birthday gifts to his clients. That was a nice chunk of change that we relied on each month that vanished overnight. Two more stores closed. One large retailer stopped ordering all together...and now the first store to ever carry our products, the Anchor Room, has closed their doors too.



Honestly, except for the emotional attachment to Anchor Room, and the relationships built with employees, I haven't really minded the loss of the wholesale accounts. I am a busy mom, with lots on my plate. My day doesn't begin and end with DipSticks, so losing wholesale seemed manageable. After all, I work just as hard on those orders as I do for direct, retail orders, but I make half the money.



Then, the busiest season of the year rolled around and I held my breath. You just literally NEVER know what's around that crazy corner called Christmas Shopping season. As expected, I had very minimal wholesale orders, but I did increase my corporate and retail orders. I think all in all it evened out. I wasn't nearly as stressed this year, which came in handy, given the whole stress eating issue going around here. But, I'm certainly not knocking anyone off the Forbes list anytime soon either.



But, I'm okay with that. For now. I have many things to deal with that are more important than sales and profit loss reports. Kids for one thing. Health is up there pretty high too. Once both kids are in full day school (which will be this August!! Woot!) I will have lots of time, and if all goes as planned, my health will be back on track by then too. So, look out!



I know the economy had a lot to do with my sales decrease locally, but I've witnessed two other food businesses in LA and New York quite literally explode with sales this year. That tells me there's a lot out there in the big ol' interwebs that I have yet to tap. Very exciting and motivating....so now I'm making my list and checking it twice, to make sure I am ready for next years Christmas Shopping season. Many changes to come, but change can be good.

Announcements! Announcements!

So, we've been a little busy around here in pretzel land. I've been working on some more aggressive marketing this holiday. And by aggressive, I mean I'm actually trying for once. You see, I have these things called children that, in the past, have required lots of attention from me. Not that they still don't, but they are much more manageable and understanding than during previous holidays. I think it goes without saying, that I prefer my sanity over pretzel sales any day. I don't think all business owners share my beliefs on that one, but for our family, this is what works.

Having said all that, I feel a little safer in attempting to secure more orders for DipSticks. So, while my days aren't entirely kid free, or stress free, I am quite a bit more flexible with what my options can be.

The best part is most people approach us anyway, so we've done pretty good so far without spending money or going crazy on getting new business. Case in point, the Hilton in Indianapolis contacted us a few weeks ago to try some samples of our pretzels. They loved them and are now carrying them as turndown ammenities for their special guests. Very cool.

Also, Crazy Sisters Coffee, in Lutheran Hospital, has shown interest and will hopefully be selling our little pretzels for the holiday season soon. Webbs Hallmark in southern Indiana has also called several times to find out how to carry the pretzels. We're playing phone tag now, but I'm confident once the kinks are worked out, we'll be there in no time.

Another exciting addition to the DipSticks family, although I'm not quite sure how it's going to play out in the long run, are my lovely and tasty cheesecakes. If you read this blog, you've seen them. They are fun to make and so delicious. And now, they can be purchased (well not now, but very soon!) at the Eagle Creek Farms Market in Winona Lake. Our pretzels will be there too in addition to ready to take home cheesecakes, and also by the slice served at lunch. I never imagined selling cheesecakes, but I'm not turning it down. My dream is to have a DipSticks Gourmet Coffee and Sweets shop someday and sell all my baked goods, pretzels, and great coffee. I can smell it already!

Overall, sales have been pretty good this year, despite the economy. But, the weird thing, is that while some stores like Hallmark and other smaller stores have really declined in sales, others have picked up, or we've added new ones. It all seems to balance out. I'm super thankful that I don't pay any overhead really at all, and no employees to worry about, and it's not our sole income, so that's a plus. It would be hard to run a brick and mortar business these days, and it's so sad to see some close up or lose hope. Maybe this holiday will turn things around. Things are looking up already!

Happy holiday shopping, and don't forget about our lovely gift boxes! (And the 4" pretzels are perfect for stockings and package tie-ons, too.)

The playboy perfume pretzel, and other short stories

Well this is an odd one, even for me. When I was in college, a friend of mine worked in a department store in the mall. She gave me a small sample of a trendy perfume named "Child." I held onto it forever. Like, a whole 10 years! I finally started wearing it and was all "Woah. This stuff is awesome!" So, after that tiny vial was almost empty, about a month later, I looked it up online. And surprise surprise, it's not sold anywhere except online now. I ordered some from beautyhabit.com, and waited anxiously for it to arrive. How does this have anything do to with pretzels? Wait for it...


So, when my order came, I immediately dabbed a bit on, and it didn't smell like I had remembered it. I waited a few weeks, and just never felt like it smelled the same. Like the genius that I am, I waited a good year before I thought, Oh hey, maybe I should email the company to see what is wrong with it.


I googled Child Perfume, found the link to the main company's website, and found the only email address on the contact page. After a short, but sweet email to a person named susan, explaining what had happened, I hit the send button expecting an auto reply saying thanks and hang on we'll get to you in a minute, right after we've taken care of the other 256 nut jobs ahead of you. So, when my iPhone beeped alerting me of a new email, I checked it and found quite a lovely surprise. Not only did Susan reply to my email, but Susan just so happens to be the ass kicking FOUNDER of the cult perfume. The founder! Replying to little old me! Personally! Within hours. I'm easily impressed apparently, but I know how hard it can be to keep up with emails, even just with a business my size. So, yeah, that was impressive.


As we chatted back and forth about the perfume, she noticed my signature that goes on every email that I send. The DipSticks company name and url are on there, and she had checked it out and said it looked incredible. After all the help she was to me with the perfume (oh, you still want to know what happened with the perfume? who cares! this is the exciting part!) I offered to send her a box of pretzels as a thank you. Then, she challenged me with a very unique request: To make a pretzel look like the Child bottle.


That seemed easy enough. At least the bottle wasn't shaped like a giant hat or something. It is a very simple, elegant roll on, with a black matte cap, and a frosty clear body, revealing the yellowish tinted perfumey goodness inside.





The biggest hurdle this task would have is what to roll the pretzel in. I roll all of my pretzels in something...even if it's just more pretzels. I do this for a few reasons. One being that they don't stick to the waxed paper that way, and another because it gives my pretzels the larger size I want.


But, since this bottle is so sleek, that wasn't really an option. I tried rolling it in multi-colored non-pareils and jimmies, to go with that childish vibe, but it looked lumpy and weird. So, I just went with straight caramel.


The yellow chocolate was easy enough to match, and the black wasn't as hard as I initially thought it would be either. I used dark chocolate and added black food coloring. Overall, it was a fun distraction, and Susan loved it. The next hurdle is to figure out if we can get a Child logo directly on the pretzel itself, just like the bottle has. Stay tuned.


As for the perfume dilemma and the playboy connection? Well, I've determined that somehow my body chemistry has changed. Because, I found my vial of the sample that I so dearly loved, and mysteriously it smells the same as the new bottle does. That means the common denominator is me. It use to smell good, now it doesn't, so my theory is that I am eating something, or something has changed, that is altering my biochemistry, hence altering the smell of this perfume. (But, that's for another, more scientific post.) With the whole sugar cleanse thing, I have a feeling I'll notice a difference. Oh don't you worry, I'll be posting about THAT in detail too.

Now for the part you've been waiting for. Susan was a former playboy playmate and partied it up with my rock gods, Motley Crüe and Poison. How amazeballs is that?! Yeah I hate that word too, but you come up with a better one! She's since moved on and is the nicest person I've ever not met. Even if this experience results in no sales, it was worth it to be able to say I know someone who partied with guys I have on a shirt somewhere in my closet...next to a jean jacket with pins of those other guys she partied with. And Ratt.

Vicarious living......sometimes it's good enough.

lady on a plane

I can't remember if I read an article about this, or saw her on a television show, but I remember vividly the story of a woman in the airline industry. It was just after 9/11 and she knew instinctively that her time as a flight stewardess was going to be coming to an end, given the trickle down effect this horrific incident would inevitably have on airline companies.

She had been a stewardess for most of her life, and wasn't sure what she should even do next. So, she just started doing everything. She began planting seeds everywhere she could think, and eventually many of those seeds sprouted at once! She found herself having money coming from all directions, just in time for her to lose her job, as expected. I believe she ended up writing a novel, and traveling the country as a motivational speaker, as well as penning several news columns.

I took inspiration from this at the time, and still hold onto it every day. As a stay at home mom, with a fairly successful business that brings me slim to zero cash, I often wonder what I really should be doing with my life. I am a multi talented, creative, intelligent person with interests in a wide variety of subjects. There has to be SOMETHING I can do to be "successful". (although, really what is success? but, that's for another, more philosophical post.)

First of all, I love DipSticks and won't ever give that up, but as much wholesale business that I do, I don't make a lot of money. Sure, we've made a profit technically, but I don't pull any salary. And I won't until I get more corporate orders and retail orders. Neither of which I can really focus on with two little kids running around. And let me be clear. I COULD do it, I just choose to put my family first at this time. Oh, and sleep. Yeah, I prioritize that too.

But, one thing is abundantly clear. I love food, and am super content talking about it, writing about it, watching tv shows about it...and obviously making it. So, as I focus on those "seeds" I have found that as I mention to people my love of food, as well as nutrition, that something interesting is happening.

Just last week I had a lovely email from a long time friend of mine with ridiculously spectacular news that I am not at this time at liberty to discuss. But, rest assured. It's huge. And totally food related.

And, a medical professional I've been working with has suggested a collaboration of sorts involving my helping clients with diet restriction options (such as gluten free, dairy free etc.) This could lead to even larger possibilities that even I had not thought of.

I am looking into going back to get my masters in Dietetics/nutrition. On one hand I'm very excited about this because I do love to learn. But, on the other hand, there's studying. And that whole part about going back to college.

I've been writing a column about food for Talk of the Town for a few months now and love it.

And, hey, just for kicks I have an invention I'm trying to get patented, and some adorable little bookmarks that I plan to launch on etsy soon. Those are my seeds. Grow little seeds, grow!

Sometimes, this is hard.

I've been enjoying the time "off" that I've had over the last few days. The curious case of strep throat that I got Christmas day sort of forced me to sit down and not move for about 24 hours. Then, a few times, I even consciously CHOSE to just sit down and do nothing except watch the kids play. I've been reminding myself that this time in their life is so very fleeting, and I don't want to regret missing it. I have a tendency to carry around my iPhone and I'm catching myself more and more staring at it and doing work or other random tasks on it, instead of watching my adorable kids.

So, yesterday and Saturday I spent a great deal of time sitting on the sofa watching Joshua play his video game that Santa brought, and then I would switch gears (and seats) and watch Jacob play our home computer. He's only recently taken interest in NickJr.com games, and is surprisingly good at it. It is fun watching how well they adapt and learn these technologies.

However...today is Monday. I have work to do. But they don't understand that, so all morning I have been telling them "No, I can't watch you." and it's breaking my heart....and theirs. They just don't realize what Mommy actually does on a day to day basis. They think I should be allowed to just sit and watch them all day. Hey...why aren't I allowed to just sit and watch them all day? This isn't fair! Waaahhh..

Plus, it's actually kind of frustrating. I have a morning routine, and it's completely off today. I just want to go hide in a closet with my cup of frickin' tea that I should totally not be drinking in the first place. CAFFEINE! DAIRY! SUGAR! But, look, here I go....mmmm. That's some damn fine tea.

And not to mention this weight I've gained. FUN! Blurg. I just need a minute or fifty to relax and recuperate from these FESTIVE HOLIDAYS!!!! Blurg.

Old country for new pretzels

A week or so ago I was called by a DJ for the local country station K105. They wanted to interview me on air for a few minutes on the Tuesday before Christmas and discuss my pretzels. At first I was a bit unsure, and nervous about it, but ultimately decided to go for it. I've been on the radio before with no problems, but this would be the first time I've actually been in the studio. I assumed that would make me that much more insecure and lead to stage fright. But I couldn't say no, this was free advertising after all.



Our power came on Monday night at 6 pm, and we packed up our stuff and moved back into our frigid home, unpacked, got organized, and in bed by 11 pm. I woke up at 6 am the next day to blizzard conditions and really dreaded going to the interview. I went anyway, and got there with no problems. Although I nearly bit it about 5 times walking up to the doors...ice covered parking lot with snow to disguise it...a nice touch.



Once inside, the DJ's made me feel comfortable as I attempted to slice pieces of pretzel using a plastic knife. When this was clearly not going to work, they upgraded me to a butter knife. Not much better, but oh well, they got to taste some, which was the main goal.



It was kind of a weird interview actually. The previous radio spot i did, was full of questions and took about 5 or 10 minutes. This one was different in many ways. To begin with, one of the DJs asked me several questions off air, right away. I answered them. Then, once on air, he asked me those same exact questions. I assume it was so that I would relax knowing that I had the answer on the tip of my tongue, but seemed a little unusual.



Also, they asked me questions in between commercial spots and songs, so my on air time was fairly small. We did a give away of one of my gift boxes, and that was that. They said they loved the pretzels, and I got a lot of traffic from K105 to my site, but no orders. I hope it's because I mentioned that people should go to Hallmark or Espresso Gallery for a quicker turn around, and not because they didn't think they were worth it, but I might not ever know.



Ultimately I left feeling pretty good about it, and with a huge stash of tshirts, cds and dvds...it was well worth the frosty drive.

Feeling Good

Over the last few weeks I've received orders from a variety of sources. Local customers who might have seen our pretzels around town, wholesale customers who order year round, and internet customers who happen to stumble upon us.

But it's always fascinating to me that anyone feels like my little old pretzels are gift worthy. I had a lady order a gift box a few days ago, and the gift tag read "Enjoy these sweet treats made right here in Fort Wayne!" It gave me a little tingle to know that a grandmother wanted to send my product to her grandchildren, and that she made a point to say they were locally made.

And, yesterday, when I dropped off some pretzels to the Anchor Room, a lady who saw me placing the pretzels in their basket, said, "Do you make those?" And after I told her that I did, she responded, "Oh, those are just wonderful. Weren't you in the mall too?" And that led to my discussion with a complete stranger about my tiny business and our retail adventures. Her comment left me feeling warm and fuzzy though. When people mention they remember us from the mall, I know we made an impression on them, which makes that whole crazy experience worth it.

In a weird way, it's like I'm making lives just a tiny bit better by having created this little business called DipSticks. All across the country (I've shipped to california, florida, las vegas, missouri, utah, arizona, kansas, alabama, new york, & north carolina just in the last week!) people are opening shipping boxes to reveal a nice little chocolate gift that a loved one sent, or that they ordered for themselves, and this all happened because I developed a few crazy pretzel flavors.

I'm not saying that life wouldn't go on without them, or that I'm eliminating global warming or something, but it is pretty cool anyway.

Tis the season!

Wow. I can't believe how fast this holiday has flown by. It seems like every year I am surprised by this business and what all it entails.

This year, given the economic uncertainty, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I assumed sales would be down, and had kind of relaxed a bit. But it didn't really work out that way.

I usually get a huge influx of wholesale orders a few weeks after Thanksgiving, and then again just before Christmas. And every single time I feel like I'm not capable of doing it all, but somehow we manage to get by unscathed. And then, just when I least expect it, come the internet orders!

I don't actively market my web site for various reasons. First of all, I am a one man band for the most part, and keeping track of multiple internet orders is more time consuming and stressful than just one or two wholesale clients. And, secondly, I do my website myself, which limits some of the options that most retails sites have. So, until I have someone more capable managing my site, I will always downplay it a little.

Inevitably though, each Christmas, the masses find me despite my lack of marketing. On Monday I received 6 nice sized web orders, and Tuesday had several orders as well. These are usually very welcome orders, as they are retail, meaning full price, so we do make more profit on those orders. But, they are also the more time consuming orders too. Some people place orders for 1 each of several different flavors, which can take as long as doing 100 of one flavor. Some expect immediate turn around, not realizing they are dealing with a mom and pop shop. And, of course, I do my best to fit what they need, because the last thing I want is for any customers to be upset at our customer service.

I'm not even remotely looking this gift horse in the mouth though. I actually look forward to a day when I can handle hundreds of online orders with no stress at all.

Perhaps when my youngest son is in Kindergarten I can donate more of my time and energy to that, but for now I'm okay with the way things are going.

We'll be on a local radio station in a few days too, which is going to be fun and a little nerve wracking at the same time. I always get nervous, but things tend to work out just fine. It's been a great year, and I look forward to what 2009 brings.

Happy Holidays to you all, and have a blessed New Year!

New flavors and spinners at Hallmark!

Hey! Good news. We have been upgraded to the new spinners at Hallmark stores. The black counter top display units that we use at Espresso Gallery are now being used at the 4 local hallmarks as well.

This is great news because the old baskets we used just weren't as appealing. Often, I'd pop in to check on the stash, and find several pretzels just tossed randomly into the basket, with the hang tags bent, or the bows undone. Not appealing.

Not only will this give us a more prominent position in the stores, but it will also clean up the look.

In addition to these new spinners, we also just dropped off several of our holiday and seasonal flavors. Candy Cane, Gingerbread Man, Snow Bunny, Snowman, Christmas Cookie, Hot Cocoa, and others.

I can't wait to see what these new displays do for our sales at Hallmark, we may just be switching all of our stores to these spinners.

Blame Facebook

I've been severely neglectful of this blog for too long! I've signed up for Facebook and have been addicted ever since. And on occasion I fit in a few hundred pretzels too...oh and those pesky kids do need some care, but only every 5 minutes or so.

I hope to soon update this blog with news from pretzel land, but until then...come find me on facebook!

History Lesson: Snow Bunny & Snowman

These two flavors came about in an unusual way. Typically I like to think of inspiration for a pretzel first, like an ice cream flavor, or candy bar. Then, I figure out what it is about that particular item that makes it good, and try to recreate it.

For example, the Gone Bananas flavor is created around the Chunky Monkey Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I took banana flavored caramel and rolled it in walnuts and then dipped it in dark chocolate. It reminded me of that ice cream, and tasted great, so it was a keeper.

But this one was created bass akwards. My friend Lesley and I were playing around with flavors one day a few years ago, and she said, "I wonder what coconut and marshmallow would taste like on a pretzel?"

I froze for a few seconds, thinking, "But that's all wrong! What would we call it? What chocolate would we dip it in?" I had never tried just combining random flavors first and then figuring out the rest of the details.

So, after what seemed like milliseconds, I said, "We could dip it in white chocolate and call it Snow Bunny!" After tasting this final product, we both loved it and a new pretzel flavor was born.

It wasn't long after that, the Snowman pretzel was born, to give customers a coconut free option.

The Snow Bunny is sprinkled with coconut and cute little edible snowflake confetti, and the Snowman is sprinkled with tiny white balls. I really wanted to find edible carrot, and black top hat confetti, and sprinkle black nonpareils on it to create a Frosty the Snowman look, but for some odd reason there are carrots, but no hat tops! Come on people...weddings!?

So, check out your neighborhood hallmark stores (in Fort Wayne that is) and you'll be seeing these and other Holiday Flavors soon...

Woodburn Missionary Church event

This weekend was quite busy, but fun! I had the pleasure of being involved in the Woodburn Missionary church Women's ministry spa day.

About 100 women attended, and were treated to break out sessions, snazzy fruity drinks with flowers in them, a well thought out cruise theme, and lots of shopping.








We were part of the shopping experience, obviously, and had a table set up to sell our pretzels, apples and marshmallows.

I had no idea what would sell and what wouldn't, so I tried to bring a variety. The most popular item were the 4" pretzels, and then the marshmallows. I was surprised by that actually. I thought the caramel apples would go fast...especially the new Pumpkin Pie ones. The are to die for. But, for whatever reason, we only sold about half of what I brought.

Everything else sold like hot cakes.







My mom came with me, and kept me awake all day. I had about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and got up way earlier than should be natural. And, being on the candida diet, I had no caffeine to perk me up either...just a bag of brazil nuts and some celery. Mmmm. Hmmm.












Mark and the boys stopped by during lunch and livened the day a little, but the boys quickly discovered the Lito Deck, and bailed into the "pool". Jacob was strangling the fake palm tree when Mark quickly decided to get out of there.












Here's a picture when they were actually sitting still.

Overall it was a fun filled day and I got some cool nail polish from the girls at the booth next to us.

I will definitely be there again next year!

History Lesson: Turtle & English Toffee

After discovering how good the lemon crunch tasted on my Lemon Meringue Pie pretzel, I very quickly followed it up with some more traditional tastes. Everyone loves a turtle, with caramel, pecans and chocolate, so of course I had to try rolling a pretzel rod in pecans. It was a no brainer, and tasted fantastic. At first I used whatever pecans I could find at the grocery store, but quickly found out how expensive, and inconsistent in taste they were.



Fortunately I was able to to get connected with a company in Georgia selling some amazing pecans. But buying them individually was a bit expensive. As time passed, and the Turtle pretzel became by far the number one selling pretzel, I was able to justify the expense of purchasing a large box of pecan pieces, which ultimately saved me money in the long run.



My next traditional flavor had to be toffee. Who doesn't love a Heath Toffee bar? But this was going to be so much better with the addition of caramel. I started out doing things the hard way as usual, and bought Heath bars and crunched them up.

Eventually I realized they sold pre-crunched Heath toffee bits at the store, and have since moved up to using bulk Heath toffee bits from my wholesale supplier.

These two simple pretzels have become the number one and two top sellers consistently, year after year.

Busy bees

As fall has made its appearance, so has lots of work for me. It seems like the weather got a bit cooler and all of a sudden everyone remembered to eat chocolate!

I've had lots of orders lately, for the pretzels, but also for the marshmallows and apples. Those caramel apples are a big hit, and I've created two new flavors for fall: Harvest, and Trick or Treat.

They aren't necessarily new flavors, because I've used them on pretzels for a while now, but they are new to the apples. They look great and taste awesome too. I'll try to get photos up eventually, but that is not my forte. I like taking pictures...I don't like taking the time to upload and prep for web. I'll get to it eventually, I promise.

In the meantime, the boys are keeping me busy as usual. Joshua has become a huge fan of kindergarten, which makes my day start much easier. No more fighting me on the issue, and he usually loves doing homework too. (the picture above is of us at the beach house in NC doing homework. He actually liked doing it on this day.) He's starting to sound out words and read books, which is simply inspiring. As a parent there is something magical when your child starts to grasp such huge concepts like reading. It's a little frightening at the same time, because that means prom is just around the corner, but I'm trying to take one milestone at a time...

History Lesson: Lemon Meringue Pie

First of all, HOLY CRAP these pictures look bad. I seriously have to get on that. For one thing, it's just a really bad angle, but mostly the thing that bothers me is how much bigger the pretzels are now than they were when I first started making them. This one looks so skinny!

Anyway, back to the point of this post. When I first decided to make these pretzels as a business, I knew I had to think of other flavors besides my original, Plain Jane, pretzel. Who can make a business on just one candy flavor, or cookie flavor? So, I got busy thinking of flavor combinations.

My favorite dessert, as you already know, is Lemon Meringue Pie. So, my first pretzel flavor attempt involved a lemon flavored candy crunch, and white chocolate to imitate the meringue. I looked at the pretzel as being like a "crust" for the pie, which then led to several more pie flavors, such as Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and Banana Cream Pie, but more on those later.

The tart lemon candy mixed very well with the sweet chocolate and caramel, and the pretzel provided just the right salty crunch. With this flavor being a winner, the possibilities were endless. From here I just started throwing all kinds of combinations together.

Of course some ended up better than others. Some flavors you just knew were going to be great, and they ended up being the worst. Other flavor combinations seemed weird, but ended up being my favorite. I think I'll do a post on some of those odd ones too.

I have 50 flavors, but I'm sure I could come up with 50 more!

History Lesson: Plain Jane

This is the one that started it all! My mom and I would make these every year around Christmas time. We actually purchased pretzel rods, and Hershey's Classic individually wrapped caramels. I would unwrap each caramel by hand and put them in the microwave to soften them a bit. Then, I would wrap each caramel around a pretzel like a rope, dip it in different kinds of chocolate, and if I felt really adventurous, I would sprinkle edible confetti on them.

For a two year old's birthday party once, I colored them purple and orange and sprinkled them with neon colored mini dinosaur shapes. They were the hit of the party, and it got my brain thinking.

After asking around if people would buy these, I decided to pursue the idea of turning these delicious treats into a business. But, there were so many changes to come, and the fun was just beginning...

History Lesson: Harvest

Harvest

I thought it would be fun to go back and look at how some of my flavors were created. I've been making these for so long that I have a tendency to forget exactly how fun and unusual it was to create some of them.

For example, I was making caramel apples the other day using my mix called "Harvest" which is comprised of red hots, candy corn, and cocktail peanuts.

To most people, that combination may not sound appetizing. It certainly didn't to me when I was kid. But, nevertheless, bowls of this combination were found all over my house around this time of year. Even relatives had it. I always picked out the candy corn by itself, or occasionally I picked out a peanut or two, but never ventured as far as eating them all at once.

Then, a few years back I got adventurous and decided that there HAD to be a logical reason why these three very specific food items were always found mingling together. So, I took a deep breath, grabbed one of each thing, and popped them in my mouth. Holy crap! That was good.

Years later, when trying to think of a seasonal pretzel for the fall, I immediately thought of this combination. After dipping it in milk chocolate and then sprinkling it with fall colored edible leaf confetti, the new "Harvest" pretzel was complete. It should be great on an apple too.

Stop touching me, and other fun stuff.

My kids have reached that age. I'm assuming it's a stage, perhaps one that lasts forever, but still, not something that is my fault, ok?! Sorry, I'm a little on edge...

What I mean is. My two wonderful boys have decided that it was time in their young life to start complaining about each other. It started a few months ago with Joshua getting upset if Jacob took something of his. That I can understand. I mean, if someone takes something of yours you have the right to be peeved.

But now it has morphed/escalated into a situation where not only does Joshua HATE everything that Jacob does, but Jacob is aware of this, and does it ten times more often.

Example: I walk to pick Joshua up from school every day. I have a double stroller in which Jacob sits behind Joshua. The very second Joshua sits down, Jacob is in his face. Usually it's to say "hi Joshua" but lately it's to make some annoying noise or to "spit" at him. no, he's not actually spitting, it's just a raspberry kind of sound, but it is annoying.

So the rest of my formerly enjoyable walk home has turned into bickering and whining between them. "Stop touching me!" "bbbzzbzzzbbzz" "Stop spitting at me!" "Bzzbbbbzzzzzzzzz" "Stop it!"

I can't even blare my headphones loud enough to drown out the sound. I'm trying to decide if I should give up the walking and kill the environment a little more with my gas guzzling SUV, in exchange for saving my ever loving mind. Not sure which is more hopeless at this point.

And in other topics, I've gotten a fairly large order recently for the mini pretzels (about 600 of them) and OMG it's so not a fun time. It is taking forever to do them for some reason and I've run into multiple issues. My wholesaler has been out of the required sprinkles, the pretzels have been too big for the desired packages, resulting in me needing to go a size up, the type of cereal wasn't right at first, so we had to change to a different one.

I'm not totally complaining, because I like the company I'm doing these for, but at some time when you own a business you wonder if time involved is worth more than actual money paid.

Lots going on in the coming weeks...gearing up for the holidays. I can't believe it's Fall already. I love the cold temps for candy making, but I do miss the sunny warm days.

Field Trips, Fevers and Fast deliveries

Just another day in my house.

It began at 4 a.m. this morning. My son Jacob, who had gone to sleep early last night with a low grade fever, woke me up wanting to go downstairs. I didn't fight him on this, because I never win. We packed up a comfy blanky and a teddy bear and landed ourselves on the sofa in front of spongebob. We were both back to sleep in a matter of minutes.

Joshua woke up at 7 and then my day began again. He was very excited because his daddy was taking him on a field trip with his kindergarten class to the Dekalb County Fair. In between getting him ready for the field trip and keeping an eye on Jacob's fever, I was trying to get myself into some kind of decent appearance for my first meeting with the owner of our client the Espresso Gallery.

Mark usually delivers the pretzels to them, but I wanted to meet her, and he was going to be gone on the trip, so I had planned to drop the pretzels off myself this time.

Got a snack for Joshua, some kleenex just in case the farm animals triggered his allergies, and his back pack ready to go. Mark was just down the street when I realized they forgot his back pack. Thank God for cell phones! I rushed it out to them, said goodbye for the fifth time that morning, and two of my family members were on their way to having a nice day.

Back inside to check on Jacob...still practically comatose on the couch. He just kept saying, "I hurt." I was beginning to worry that it was something like appendicitis or a bladder infection, but then I realized that I was also coming down with a sore throat and aches, and seriously doubted the possibility that I'd caught a bladder infection from him. That made me feel a little better knowing that he just had the flu. But, neither Motrin nor Tylenol were making a difference. Usually one or the other gets them back to normal feeling within a few hours, but this had been over 12 hours and no change.

I managed to pull myself together with a quick, somewhat professional looking pony tail. I finished getting the order together for the 4 coffee shops and was ready to walk out the door when my cell phone rang.

It was one of our best clients, however, they are also our most spontaneous clients. It is not unusual for them to call on a Monday and want 200 pretzels by Tuesday afternoon. Today was no different. They wanted a quick order of about 24 pretzels and 4 bags of bark by today.

Thankfully I had just made up a bunch to have on hand just in case. I left the house with my 3 year old just in his diaper and a t-shirt...but wrapped in a comfy blanket. Swung by the shop to pick up the order for the 4 Espresso Galleries and gather the new last minute order. Realized I had no idea how to get to the Espresso Gallery corporate offices and no way to contact Mark on the field trip. The owner of the store was unavailable as well. I searched their name on my trusty iPhone web browser, mapped out the location, and found it within a few minutes. Then, headed to deliver my other order in record time.

By the time we got back home, I was feeling a little run down, but Jacob was starting to perk up. One sucker and a few gold fish crackers later and the boy is practically back to normal.

After weeks of driving me crazy, my craft area finally got my attention today, and I began organizing it. Jacob made his way to the table and started getting into everything and singing...I knew then that he was going to be just fine.

A very crazy start to a somewhat typical day. Being a business owner is certainly never boring.

Oh blogging, how I've neglected you.

I fully intended to get back home from North Carolina and post a brief overview of how our time was, and to complain about how horrible my kids were, but it seems life had other plans.

Being gone for a week meant putting some business things on hold, and now I'm playing catch up. Plus, we have gotten several orders, some big, that need finishing in the next few days.

I am thrilled to be this busy already. Actually, we've been consistently busy all year, but this is a great indication of what kind of holiday we have waiting for us. With the addition of the new products, especially the caramel apples, we have been able to reach new people and different budgets.

I'm excited about the next few months, and hopefully I'll actually get around to posting regularly again.