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...

Turkey Day desserts at Williams Sonoma

So, I've attended three cooking classes in the last three weeks, and am just now finding one worthy of blogging about. The first class was about my beloved French cuisine, but the only great thing to come from the class was the Wild Mushroom Tartlet (Poached Pears in spiced Red Wine...uh. No.)

Then the next week was hors d'oeuvres. The class I signed up for and the class I ended up with were two different things. There were four recipes, or so I thought, but we ended up doing almost 8. We ran out of time..actually we went into double overtime, and had to omit one.

My favorite from that class was the Quick Fried Shrimp with Sweet Toasty Garlic, and the Fried Green Olives. Sounds disgusting, I know. Even for an avid olive lover like myself, I was skeptical, but they were so good it nearly made me want to plunk down the $150 for the deep fryer. But, seriously, people. I do not need a deep fryer. No good can come of that. Before you know it I'd be dipping my pretzels in there, ala deep fried snickers, and/or burning the house down.

The other two mildly passable hors d'oeuvres were two nut mixes. One being a curry based salty mix, and another having candied bacon in it. Um..if it's got candied bacon, I'm there. It was a sweet mix, with dried cherries in it, and pralined pecans too. Yep, it's going to be a good one for the holidays.

But finally, the Thanksgiving Desserts class. On the schedule was, in the order I was most looking forward to, Cranberry Cheesecake with Chocolate Cinnamon Crust, Bourbon Pecan Pie with Buttermilk whipped cream, Spiced Pumpkin layer cake with Cream Cheese frosting, and Molasses Gingerbread cake with Cinnamon whipped cream.

The first dish we sampled was the pumpkin layer cake. The cream cheese frosting also had pumpkin puree in it, which I've never seen done before. It was very moist and flavorful. I'll definitely make it someday.

The next one she made in class was the Bourbon Pecan Pie. First sign of doom was that they couldn't put bourbon in it because they don't have a liquor license. Um, dumb question....why the bejeesus put that on the menu then? That was the whole reason to get excited about it. Everybody knows what a regular old pecan pie tastes like. Then, the final blow was that, even 35 minutes after class was technically over, the pie wasn't done. I didn't even get to taste the non bourbon pecan pie. I guess it's lucky it didn't have bourbon, or I'd have camped out waiting for that beyotch to be done!

Next up to taste was the one I was most looking forward to. You know my current obsession with cheesecakes..so it's not a surprise that it was the cranberry cheesecake with chocolate cinnamon crust. However, the chef decided to do these in the mini, mini form. They were very dried out and the crust to filling ratio was way off, and so the bottom of the cake was hard as a rock. I could not even detect the slightest bit of cinnamon either. And the cranberry sauce just didn't do anything for me. Sounds like I'm being picky. I am. You expect a lot out of these cooking classes when you're paying $40, and I was a little bummed.

But, the saving grace was, ironically, the one recipe I wasn't excited about. That'll teach me! It was the Molasses Gingerbread cake with cinnamon whipped cream. They baked it in a nice bundt pan that was shaped almost like the Swiss Alps. The edges were just a bit chewy, like the edges of brownies, and the center was the most ridonculously moist cake ever. Huge taste of gingerbread and cloves and cinnamon. The molasses wasn't overwhelming at all. I will be making this cake for Christmas too.

It was a very fun class though, and I met some nice people. Foodies are usually fun people and love to talk, so we all got to gabbing about favorite recipes and food tips. I love these classes, and can't wait until the next batch comes closer to Christmas. If you ever get the chance...novice or professional, I highly recommend these classes.

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!

Alaska is Purple

My darling little 5 year old has started the much anticipated age of "why?" Yep, every stinking thing that comes out of my mouth is followed closely by "Why?"

It doesn't even matter what I say. I could say, "Joshua let's go outside" or "Joshua your shirt's on backwards." and still..."Why?"

After weeks of trying to answer each question logically, I finally had a moment of desperation in which I truly just needed him to shut the heck up. So, one night when Joshua asked if he could have apple cider, I said "NO. IT's all gone."

"Why?"

"Because you drank it all."

"Why?"

"I guess because you really liked it, and now we need to get more from the store."

"Why?"

Seriously? Are you kidding me? I could not take it any more. So my answer to his last "Why?" was "Because Alaska is Purple!"

And he said, "OH. Okay."

If only all conflicts could be resolved that easily.

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.

Fall inspired cooking

While on vacation in North Carolina, I saw a road side stand with a huge sign out front that said "Our own Sweet Potatoes!" I was intrigued at the idea of using fresh, locally grown sweet potatoes so I snapped up a pound or two and took them back to the house not having a clue what I was going to do with them.

One night for dinner, my sister in law, Dari, was making some fried pork chops, and we decided that roasted sweet potatoes would go well with them. I cubed them and added a little oil, butter, brown sugar, fresh chopped garlic and black pepper. Roasted them in the oven on 450 for about an hour, and they turned out ridiculously delicious. The edges caramelized and were a bit chewy. Everyone loved them, and now my affair with sweet potato has followed me home.

At our local Amish market, Schmuckers, I saw some freshly picked sweet potatoes and couldn't resist. But instead of making the same dish as I had in NC, I decided to look up cheesecake recipes using sweet potatoes. Sure enough...I found one.

So on Friday, I had nothing to do, well actually I had a crap load to do, but nothing that actually had a deadline. I took that as a sign to just bake the day away.

The cheesecake called for graham cracker crust, a sweet potato filled middle layer and a praline topping. The crust went smoothly, but I had some issues with the sweet potatoes. Mostly my issues were that I apparently can't read.

I had already peeled and cubed the potatoes and baked them for about an hour before I realized I was supposed to bake them before peeling them. This meant that my potatoes were tough and hard to puree. The cheesecake ended up tasting good, just a little more texturey than desired. The praline topping made the dessert and hid any cracks that popped up despite my best intentions. I attempted a mousse for the top, similar to what I do on my White Chocolate Raspberry cheesecake. I used a vanilla instant pudding and added nutmeg, but the flavors didn't go well with the more mild tasting cheesecake. It was almost like an eggnog flavor, maybe better for a pumpkin pie flavored cheesecake. Next time I think I'll just do a cheesecake flavored mousse with a bit of vanilla bean.

This recipe is a keeper though, and I think I'll make it for a thanksgiving event.

In addition to making the Sweet Potato Cheesecake, I made my Butternut Squash Soup. This soup calls for Butternut Squash, but I've always used it in combination with Acorn as well. It is a delightful, but rich soup that always hits the spot on a cool autumn day.

All that was missing from the day was making something with pumpkin....hmmm. Muffins sound pretty good about now. With a nice praline crunch to go on top, maybe even a shortbread crust layer...I may have to get back in the kitchen.

Got ya singin' it!

My husband and I have this thing that we've done forever. I have no idea where it all started, perhaps he started it in college with his Dewey Geek friends. But either way, we've done it for as long as I can remember.

Basically you just start singing a song. The dumber the song, the better. And once the other person starts singing it you say "Got ya singin' it!" It's awesome when you can get someone singing a song like "Karma Chameleon" or "Jimmy Crack Corn".

But last night I was singing a little ditty from one of my favorite bands of all time...Ratt. Do not judge me.

So, there I was singing "Round and Round" and pretty soon my 5 year old, Joshua, was singing it. Mark and I looked at each other and yelled..."Got ya singing it!". We both nearly peed ourselves laughing so hard. Joshua had no clue why we thought it was so funny.

Personally I think it's fantastic that my son clearly has great taste in music.

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.

Tickled Pink.

We got to North Carolina and to our beach house today. All I can say is that I am never coming home! We arrived just shortly after hurricane/tropical storm Hannah passed through. We weren't affected much, other than a later time of entry to the house, and lots of sand blown all around the deck chairs and fence.

But, the ocean is crazy right now. I've never been near the ocean during hurricane season, and especially not right after one, so it is quite the experience. The waves are huge and it's very windy and loud. I am loving it.

The boys are enjoying playing with all of their cousins, and running around like mad men. Luckily for me there are lots of adults (some sober) to keep a watch on them too. It's a big house, and easy to get lost in.

I plan to get some work done here, but it's going to be a bit harder than it was at the lake cottage. There's a slight difference between a tiny old lake cottage with orange shag and olive counter tops, and this 3 story, 8 bedroom mansion on the beach.

Seriously plotting the ways I can make enough money to own this thing...and prostitution is on the list....just kidding mom! I only wrote the words "call girl". Just kidding there too. Okay, maybe not.

Hurricanes

We are planning our annual trip to the Outer Banks this week. With our leave day being Friday, I have a lot to do. Worrying about which hurricane is going to hit us first wasn't exactly top on my list when I first made it, but it has quickly landed there. I'm not sure if I'm terrified or excited. I've never witnessed a hurricane. I've had my share of tornado warnings, and seen a tornado up close and personal once though. At least a hurricane gives you advance notice, and we'll have time to escape if need be, but still...kind of puts a damper on the whole fun in the sun thing.

And in preparation for our leave, I've had to get a lot of business details under control. I always like to let my wholesale clients know in advance that I'll be leaving in case they need something while I'm gone. It has happened in the past where I get an order while on vacation. I can't drive home to fill any orders this time, so it's plan ahead or get nothin'!

Many of them ordered right away, and a few waited until the last minute, but I've got everybody taken care of. Of course there's the chance that I'll get an internet order, but I'm not too worried about that. Those are usually pretty flexible.

We've had several big orders lately and a few web orders too. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it keeps me on my toes. With Joshua being in Kindergarten, it has really given me a nice chunk of time to work and get things on a more organized level. It seems like it should be common sense, but I hadn't really realized how much more hectic things are with two kids.

Joshua has always been my quiet, obedient child. He doesn't really seem to take up much of my time or require a lot of attention, like Jacob does, but now that he's in school I'm noticing just how much time he actually did occupy. All the times I have to stop what I'm doing to watch him do some crazy stunt or look at his video game or get him juice/food etc. Not to mention all the times I just randomly stop to hug and kiss the heck out of him, or push him on the swing outside.

Kind of throws a kink in your focus, which can really slow down progress on any project. Now that he's not here, and Jacob seems to have calmed down quite a bit, I'm able to focus and get more done in a shorter amount of time. I have lots of leftover time to play with Jacob, and then by the time school is out, I'm refreshed and ready to handle Joshua and all of his crazy antics.

Who knows, I might actually get some more marketing done for DipSticks. Lately I've just been keeping up with what comes my way, I haven't actively been trying for new business. And, I'm even starting a second business...because I'm insane....so that is taking up a bit of my creative energy too. It's not the same kind of business, so it won't interfere or take any attention away from DipSticks, but it will give me something to do during the day.

I'll post more about that after vacation. I hope to have it finalized by then, and perhaps even a new client or two. Seems like hurricanes come in many forms...

Seriously not that busy.

I haven't blogged regularly since Joshua started school. You'd think that would mean that I'm so swamped that I haven't had time, but it's actually the opposite.

I have really been enjoying the time I have to spend with Jacob. He used to be the biggest pain in my ass. No, seriously. There have been numerous days where I calculated the process and potential pain of putting him back where he came from...or, at the very least, running away to join the circus where I could at least get cotton candy for my troubles.

But since we've had full days together, we've been traveling the town and doing all kinds of things that I never would have attempted a few weeks ago. In a store full of nick knacks...he was the perfect angel. Everyone going ga ga over his cute face, and his new race car shaped shoes.

In one day we hit three whole stores and a fruit stand! Beat that! And the only grief I had was that I had to keep telling him "It's a watermelon!" "It's a watermelon!" "Still..a watermelon!" But, otherwise, he was a perfect angel.

He's been playing with lots of blankets at home. At any given moment, if you walk into my house, there are at least 8 blankets confiscated from various parts of the house, all piled into a nest for him to sit in the middle of...or my favorite is when he straightens one out, piles all of the dog's toys on it, and steers it like it's an airplane. Or sometimes he says "All aboard" indicating how much of a multi-tasker that blanket can be.

Maybe it's the lack of peer pressure since Joshua isn't around. He doesn't feel like he needs to act up, or maybe Joshua is the instigator, but either way, I'm certainly not going to pinch myself.

Frustration worthy?

There's this little website I know, called http://www.dipstickspretzels.com/. I've kind of become familiar and attached to this URL, considering I purchased it for my business back in 2002.

I picked that name because http://www.dipsticks.com/ was taken. It wasn't being used, mind you, just reserved and "For sale", presumably in the hopes that some car parts manufacturer or auto store would want it. When I approached the owner of this site about buying it from them the exact reply I received from a nice man in Shri Lanka was "We'll entertain the sale in the form of a five figure offer." Considering a typical URL costs less than $20 for a year, my exact reply to this nice, but clearly opportunistic man, was "Well, if by five figures you mean $100.57, then we might have a deal." I never heard back from him again. Was it something I said?

So, I moved on and thought long and hard about what other URL I could use for my newly forming business. I thought http://www.dipsticksgourmetpretzels.com/ was too long. I thought http://www.dipsticksllc.com/ was too formal, not to mention boring as hell.

So, I went with http://www.dipstickspretzels.com/ and was content with that until about a year ago. I had a group of students from IPFW's business dept. helping me with some marketing, and one of them brought to my attention a web site called, and pay close attention here, http://www.dipstickpretzels.com/. Did you see that? The "s" is missing after dipsticks. That tiny little spelling change has been the bane of my existence for quite awhile. The site is poorly constructed and the pretzels they offer are much different, with far less variety than my own.

They have changed absolutely NOTHING about this site in the last year that I've noticed, and there are spelling errors and bad grammar all over the main page. Don't even get me started on the graphics.

I emailed the owner of this site back in the fall. I politely mentioned that her similar URL was causing confusion to my customers and would she be interested in changing her name? I offered to pay for any fees that would occur due to this change as well. Her reply: "I have the same problem."

I took that as a no.

Since then, I have had to make sure that when I give someone my email address or URL, that I stress the fact that there is an "S" at the end of dipstick. But, I still get people calling me saying that I hadn't replied to an email, or that they mailed me something and I never got it, or that they couldn't find my pumpkin pie flavor on the site. After a brief moment of confusion, it usually hits me square in the face that, yes, indeed, they have forgotten the "S".

How much business have I lost because of this tiny difference? How much business might she have gained as well? I may never know. I keep secretly hoping that she won't renew her URL this time and I'll snatch it up too.

So, what's a business owner to do? How do I solve this issue, or is there no way to fix it? Maybe I could change it to dippitydodah.com or dipsticksareyummy.com or damngoodpretzels.com.

What do ya think? Should I change my URL, or just play the hand I've been dealt and hope the other party drops out of the game?