Ok, so that part about apologizing for not writing often enough...

REPEAT.

Wow, it's funny how we can let life get in the way of our best intentions, isn't it?

Or maybe it's not funny, so much as sad. or lazy? or apathetic?

My only resolution this year was to be more disciplined... I'm doing ok in some areas, but still need a lot of work in others. How about you?

The bakery/bistro has been wonderfully busy since august, and that is really taking up every minute I have, so blogging isn't really high on my priority list, even though I know how much I get out of it, and hopefully I have something worthwhile enough to ponder that other people get something out of it too.

So i'll attempt to be more regular in my posting.

Meanwhile - i'm excited to say that there have been many many small steps in a forward direction taken over the past few months. We'll be opening a new kiosk right on the waterfront here in Gibsons which is extremely cool. We're still looking for some part-time staff, but i'm sure they will come.

Business has improved significantly since last spring and seems to be on a steady, upward path which is perfect.

More soon...

It would seem that mother nature is not happy with us here in Gibsons... likely because she showered us with blasting heat for a few days (finally) and people started whining about it being TOO hot, after whining for months about it being TOO wet & cold... so what happens? MORE RAIN! it's been raining for 4 days now... not straight, but throughout the day, on and off. We just had a "biblical" downpour - seriously! RIVERS coming down the hill... I'll be very surprised if there weren't a few floods and landslides.

Anyway, what does that have to do with taking baby steps? It's another lesson for us. A lesson in surrender - wow am I ever getting a lot of those lately. We definitely CANNOT do anything about the weather... which seems to totally impact our business, tho we cannot establish a pattern. Get this:

Say it's been overcast but not wet for a few days... business is good. Then it starts to rain. People stay home. If it continues to rain for more than a couple days, they start coming out again. If it keeps raining for three days or more, they get back to their routine and go out a lot. Then, as soon as the rain stops and the sun comes out, they stop then too... They stare in wonder at the fireball in the sky, and think they best get to the garden because they haven't been able to in months. So we don't see them again for a few days... provided of course it stays sunny. If it stays sunny for a couple days, they start getting back into routine. If it starts raining again, we go back to the beginning and start over.

There's no knowing from one day to the next what business is going to be like. It's really hard to know what to do, how much bread to bake, how many quiche to make, how much to prep... especially now, with the lack of cold table... having to make so much stuff in advance and having to GUESS how many people we might see, when the weather is completely random and schizophrenic.

So, we stop trying to guess. Go with the gut. Make a decision and stick to it. Boy, oh boy, is that HARD! But it HAS to be done.

Right?

Remember the part about how our cold table died and we had to start making sandwiches in advance and wrapping them and putting them in the cooler... just like the gas station does?

Turns out... many customers like how fast that makes their lunch arrive at their table. Who knew??? I mean, we're not a fast food joint, and only a few times in the past 16 months has anyone ever had to wait more than 10 minutes for their lunch...but still. Who knew that people would rather have it fast than fresh? I guess I should have known.

Look at what we have for lunch options here in Gibsons - Wendy's, McDonald's, Tim Hortons, A&W, a couple grocery story deli's, a few bakeries (ours was the only one with made-to-order sandwiches, not pre-made & wrapped in the cooler) and that covers it... if you're not looking for a sit-down-for-an-hour-and-pay-more-than-$20-for-lunch-for-two kind of restaurant...

So, that leads us to wonder - does it really matter? Does our preference to serve our customers freshly made, the way they ask for them, sandwiches make an iota of difference if the customers are more than prepared to eat a sandwich that's been wrapped in plastic for an hour or more and sitting in a cooler?

Apparently not.

aaaaarrrrrrrgh

So our cold table died completely... and of course the health inspector came by that day.

That resulted in an order to no longer make sandwiches to order... one of our unique selling points here at the bakery - we're the only place in town where you can choose EXACTLY what you want on your sandwich and have it made fresh while you wait (well, Subway does that, but it's not really the same... it's SUBWAY!!!?) We have been working really hard at building a reputation for having the best lunch in town... and NOW??? Until we get a new cold table we have to make all the sandwiches at once, wrap them up and put them in the display cooler... no more choices. We had 5 people walk out without buying a thing yesterday because the sandwiches I prepared were not what they wanted. How do you accommodate "no mayo, no mustard, please" on premade sandwiches??? I guess I could make some without, but how many people DON'T want mayo? Very very few in our experience...

So you're probably thinking, "well go get a new cold table and make it snappy!" which would be our thought too... but unfortunately, at this moment we do not have a spare $3200.00 laying around that we can just run out and do that with - aside from the fact that it means one of us going into Vancouver for the day to accomplish said task (that in itself is a minimum $75 trip for gas & ferry).

I had an idea - so far it hasn't been very enthusiastically accepted, so perhaps it's not a fabulous one... but here it is - tell me what you think - A "Name your sandwich" Auction... highest bidder gets to name their favourite sandwich whatever they want... so for example, we have a regular clientele that includes realtors, contractors, lawyers, pharmacists, accountants... for the highest bid they could get their favourite sandwich named for their business... "The XXX CGA - Roasted Chicken with monterey jack, cheddar, sundrieds & lots of veggies" Every time someone reads it on the menu or orders it aloud is free advertising! I don't have a problem with it... why not? What can it hurt to advertise our customers??? I don't think we'd raise the full $3200 but we might raise half of it... we have 8 different sandwiches and three salads... heck we could rename EVERYTHING for all I care.. at $50-100 top bid per item we'd raise MORE than that.

Too hare-brained?

Anyway... that's our latest challenge... which we're really trying hard to surmount with grace & creativity, but boy oh boy is it a tough one.

So my son graduated from High School this past weekend. That marks a new phase in both our lives.

Yesterday he got his first test of adulthood - coping with car issues! :D We got his car running and insured, so that he can find himself a job that will facilitate his wish to travel... got the car from home to the gas station to the girlfriend's house and that was that. It stalled, and will not restart. Seems to be the alternator. But what do i know...?

According to my partner,(who went out to help) my son handled the situations with grace & humour, which is a big step for him, as he's often prone to reacting angrily when things don't go according to plan.

I'm delighted to see him growing up before my eyes.

Today... another day for baby steps. no great leaps, too tired.

But still energized... how does that work? I got energized today by the prospect of collaborating with a new friend on a series of workshops for women (and men too, but mostly focused on women). the secret got out that i love to organize events... something i haven't made time to do in years, really. I don't really HAVE time these days, with 16hour days at the bakery and all, but i find energy in it... so, i'm gonna do it!

stay tuned.

Last night, I came to re-realize that focus - rather than panic - can create significant results.

Ya, ya... i know i've always KNOWN that, but sometimes you have to get smacked in the head more than once to really absorb information.

So my smack in the head lastnight was about business... my business... ian's and my business. this bistro we own.

in the last week, "the competition" opened a bigger, better, stronger, fancier, way more expensive, new store about 200m from our front door.  they already had one about the same size as us (maybe a touch smaller) just a km up the road, but they bought a property that has been a number of other restaurants in the past 7 years and completely renovated it and opened their 4th store... 200m up the hill from us. (We lovingly refer to it as the "cedar palace on the hill", as it's got clear cedar trunks for posts around the patio, and a lovely cedar pergola atop them... it's quite something).

 Anyway, we've been watching their progress for months, and they quietly opened their doors last week to our unexpected dismay. (I'd thought we had a couple more weeks of business left before they opened.) So, they open... business takes a nose dive, panic ensues - as I'm prone to inital panic when I fail to FOCUS.

It really requires a lot of FOCUS on my part to dissipate panic. Even tho I can rationalize with the best of them all the reasons NOT to panic, when it comes to things that impact my revenue in a noticeable way... I PANIC first... THINK later.

So, back to the story at hand - last night Ian & I were talking through some things - he'd had dinner at another local joint and spent some time talking with the owner there, and got some good insights... about "the competition"... and came home to share them. 

the insights suggested that the "honeymoon" will be over fairly soon - which we also believed to be likely - and that she regularly hears comments from HER customers about our food and it's quality, so she knows that we're making a strong reputation for great lunches.

Anyway - i'm past PANIC for the most part, now... and able to FOCUS on the task at hand which is OUR BUSINESS... not the other guy's business.

As ian has said numerous times in the past couple weeks, that just as if this were hockey, we need to focus on our own game, not what the other team is doing... and do what we need to do to ensure our own success rather than worrying about how much success other folks are garnering. there IS enough room for all of us here, and we know our product is excellent...

so... no more panic... much more focus. 

So, for the first time in a long time, i actually decided - very consiously - to NOT spend my entire day working, and fretting about all the things that need to be done.

Instead, my friend Wendy and I went on a local home & garden tour in support of the botanical garden society.

hm. what a completely un-work like thing to do on a gorgeous sunday afternoon.

and one that had moments of awesome beauty and breathtaking nature, not to mention staggering price tags and unfathomable hours of work involved... there are some pretty amazing houses and gardens around here!

Anyway, my point was, that after much reflection these past months i've come to admit that I am an ineffective workaholic. I think i use work as a shield to protect me from seeing, doing, and being the things I could create in my life if i stopped and thought about it for moment.

perhaps i use work to get attention? "oh you work so hard", "wow you're always working, boy you work hard", "you poor thing, always working so hard"... you know?

Can't say that i truly LIKE that attention, but maybe that's part of it? I can't think of any really good reason why else I would choose work over play most of the time...

Decided today that I wish to spend my sundays doing the many things that i've never done around here - there are LOTS of things to do and it's shameful that i've never done most of them after living here for 7 years...

So next sunday we're going to Keats Island... and we'll see what happens from there.

So - day by day we trudge along, doing the best we can with what we have at any given moment. Or so we think.

Are we really doing our best... or are we just doing what we always do, which is not really even close to our best?

I question myself on that every so often.Mostly when things are going quite the way I'd like them to. I question myself on that when I feel like I'm doing everything I can, but then, when I sit down to really THINK about it, realize that I could be doing more.

Frankly, that happens way too much.

So, what I want to know is WHY. ? . Why do I put out less than my best effort and then wonder why I got less than I expected for results?

I've come up with a few "reasons". Yes, you can substitute "excuses" freely...

- tired. tired. tired.

- cashflow difficulties

- overwhelmed

- tired.

- coping with chaos

- too many good ideas, not enough time or manpower to implement them all properly, so some get done half-assed

- tired

- great input from lots of sources... no extra hands to execute

- difficulty prioritizing all the good ideas

- get started on one project and get distracted by another, project one never gets finished

hmmm. is that enough?

what i need to do is a) get more sleep, b) get better organized, c) stop asking for input :D

then maybe I can compile a list, prioritize it, assign cashflow and get ON WITH IT!!

what do you think?