Love of Coffee

As we were leaving the store to come home tonight, my Bride, carrying her coffee and purse to the car, exclaimed "Oh No!!!"

Fearing something really bad had happened, I hollered at her "What's wrong!?!?"

Confirming a casualty even worse than I could have imagined, she cried "I spilled my coffee all over the inside of my purse!"

"Hey," I cried, "be careful! Do you know how much that coffee costs?!?"

I guess you have to be a coffee lover to understand how much one can allow coffee to rule your day. Can't wake up without it, can't finish dinner properly without a cup, have to make a special trip to the store to get more cream when you run out unexpectedly.

One of the biggest advantages of us running our own coffee bar is that we get to drink GREAT coffee all the time. In the days before we opened the Smelly Gourmet, we drank an awful lot of folgers (lower-case intentionally.) We would never be able to afford to buy stuff as good as we drink now.

The other day we actually (I still can't believe it!) RAN OUT of coffee at home! Luckily, Bride found a quarter pound of ground coffee sitting on my desk that we had brought home a couple of months ago. We discovered that, even a couple of months after grinding, it was still better than the FRESHED can of folgers we ever drank!

A Beautiful Day at the Smelly Gourmet

I've been living up to my name "Head Stinker" this week. Making a lot of bath and body products to get out in the mail. Crema Fiore Bath and Body is our own brand. Exceptional product I do say!

For a winter day it was a beautiful sun filled day around 60 degrees! This is my kind of winter. We had quite a few visitors today as well as other merchants from the town. The people in Metamora are wonderful. I can't wait to live there.

Just got another huge Crema Fiore Bath and Body order! I'm up to my eyeball in soap, lotion and oils.

While Steve is playing "Accountant" I get to do the fun stuff. I just wish we could get through our "To Do Board" that has over 40 things to be done. The board is overflowing.

I Hate Accounting!

Spent several hours today trying to figure out the accounting aspects of our business, including a couple of hours with the accountant, then several more hours fixing things and trying to understand other things.

Then, just when I think I have it figured out, I start explaining to my partner (The Head Stinker) who asks a few simple questions that I have no idea how to answer.

Well, at least she sold some stuff in the store today while I was immersed in how much money we lost last year.

Routine

Lot of visitors this morning- George for a hot chocolate, "Lion" Bill for coffee, Al R. for coffee, Paul H. to say good morning.

Brenda working on filling a Virgin Islands order, I'm working on getting our end-of-the-year inventory entered into the computer so we can get our taxes figured out.

Taxes: I've always heard that the thing most entrepreneurs hate most is accounting and taxes. I don't argue with them at all! But we can't afford to pay someone else to do them, so I muddle through on my own. I am getting smarter about this accounting business, but progress is slow. Got an appointment with Adam this Thursday to get him, a Quickbooks expert and a CPA, to try and educate me a bit more.

Making great coffee and computer clocks is a ton of fun, selling same even more fun. But all this other crap you have to do (like accounting) is the downside!

Of course, it still beats the hell out of punching the time clock in the big corporate world.

Better get back to my inventory-data-entry work before the boss(Bride) yells at me. First I gotta get out front and stand our sign back up- teh wind just blew it over again.

I'm calling it a day!

Brenda here. I have spent many hours working on the gift shop site "All Occasions Gift Shop" and it is now time to quit. I have a hard time pulling myself away from work. It is too much fun working for yourself. As the so call "Head Stinker" at the Smelly Gourmet I offically am quiting for the evening.

Day Off

Monday is our day off at the shop- we are otherwise open six days a week. But, as is typical, we both sit at home and do business stuff, mostly on the computer. Though I did get a little time out in my wood shop today, most of the day has been sitting here at the computer.

Been making progress on our new line of refrigerator magnets though. Gotta lotta magnets designed, but getting all the sales and promotion documents together so we can mail em out is almost as much work as designing the magnets.

Come to think of it, this blog might be a great idea as way for me to communicate with my wonderful bride! Sometimes because of the continual working, we don't always share how we are feeling with each other-- even when we get home, our six kids need attention that can detract from our own communicating. So we can just say it here- she's probably the only other person that'll read my ramblings.

OK, the blog is now set up, like we've been discussing doing for a long time, so now I'm gonna quit here and go fix me a drink (Kessler's and Diet Coke) and relax- "Las Vegas" comes on in a few minutes.

Hopefully my beautiful Bride will quit working soon and come and join me. (She hardly ever drinks, but she does like "Las Vegas".)

Introducing....

We (Steve and Brenda) are starting this blog to use as a diary of the happenings in our lives with respect to trying to make a living in our retail store/ web store/ bath and body manufacturing/ computer graphics production/ craft making/ coffee bar business(es?)