A Single Year

It is November 27th, 2012 and as I sit here in the Ice Cream shop I think about where we have been in the last year.  It's a quiet day today, gloomy and cloudy and in the 40'ish temperature-wise....in other words, lots of time for reflection while I tend to very few customers.  It's amazing to me how much we have learned as a family through this business in the last year. From scheduling to taxes to ordering and keeping everyone accountable. Some Joe and I already had some experience in but it's a little different when managing a 'family' business.  Mostly, I have learned that I am not always right and that the opinions and suggestions of my family members and husband are invaluable and I need to listen.

I am also a little sad today. Joe had a heart attack almost 2 weeks ago and a lot has changed in how we view things in our lives and what is important. Yes, it's important to go to work, pay your bills, advertise to create more customers and keep our business growing but first we must take care of ourselves..a good friend said this to us the day Joe had his heart attack.  I didn't realize the burden Joe was feeling to make this little cute Ice Cream Shop become a success or at least pay for itself.  I see that I was quite selfish because I felt like I was doing my part in my job, providing the insurance and my part of the housework, bill paying, child-rearing. Wrong. Little did I realize that the more I stressed out I became at my job, the more it put pressure on Joe to do a better job of doing everything here and home.

The day Joe had his heart attack we both thought there was a chance that he may not make it through the heart cath when he got to Huntsville Hospital....that changes a person, inside and outside..and everyone around them.

It may take us a while to get to where we need to be as a family, which is part of growing and changing that we forever are doing.  I have faith that we will get there and accept the fact that it will be a hard road full of crying and self doubt and looking in different directions to find the answers.  I do know that Ice Cream will be a big part of it for now because we have a dream to finish.

~Kat

Summer Love (of Ice Cream)

Summer is Ice Cream.

Summer begins the season of the Great Nostalgia for me.  Nostalgia is made up of the memories in the back corner of your brain that trigger something emotionally special and make you want to close your eyes and be transported back to that time.  The smell of charcoal heating up on a grill, the sound of crickets chirping in the evening, the lightning bugs slow on and off flash during the hour that dusk falls, the smell of salty sea air in the car when you get close to the beach and for me, the taste of Ice Cream.

Last night while I was enjoying my Brownie Deluxe in the peace and quiet of my house I fell victim to the Great Nostalgia. I was victimized so much so that when I finished my treat, I went outside and laid down on the concrete on my back by the pool while it was starting to get dark to watch the clouds move ever so slowly, listening to the locusts and crickets and searching for the fleeting flash of a lighting bug. No thoughts of anyone or anything that I should be doing, just laying there enjoying the sounds and sights of summer... just like a kid.

Why is it that when we grow up that we turn off the parts of our brains that let us do nothing or use our imaginations and create memories for the Great Nostalgia?  I decided at that point that I needed to exercise my ability to do nothing, let my brain soak up my surroundings, imagine my life with prince's on horses and fights with trolls and evil monsters with my elementary school friends out behind the McCarthy-Towne yard where the pine trees hung low, and remember how we used a magnifying glass while hiding inside the large tires in the school yard to burn holes in a leaf without getting caught by the teacher.

In that Great Nostalgia is where my father now lives as well as the trolls and prince's. I remember him taking me and my brothers to Friendly's to get Ice Cream during the summer (when we needed a fast treat and didn't have time to wait in line at Kimball's).  I distinctly remember my Dad, me and my two brothers walking out across the parking lot with sugar cones in hand and me licking my treat right onto the ground in front of me.  As the last of five children it was my role to immediately start crying for pity and I knew that the crying would get my Dad to go back in and get me another cone. To my brothers dismay (because it would have been SO much more fun for them if I didn't get another one) my Dad would hand me the second cone with instructions of not to lick at the bottom of the ice-cream ball where it was dripping down my sugar cone to avoid the catastrophe all over again.

As you raise your children, have time off with your family and enjoy the wonderful days of Summer, create the Great Nostalgia, relive it and never forget what it's like to be a kid eating Ice Cream with your Dad.

Spring is in the air!

What a wonderful idea.

Move the clock ahead an hour and have more daylight in the evening.  Whoever decided we needed to keep Daylight Savings Time must have known that I suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and need some serious sunshine to keep me and my family happy! Today, we gain an hour of daylight and my hopes are that it hurls people everywhere into that happy, springtime, be outside & enjoy ice cream time of the year!

For those of you who actually take the time to read this and know I haven't posted for 2 months, we have been very busy and I have not had a chance to blog about anything..(and of course I was a victim of the wintertime dreads, a.k.a. SAD and was only making it to go to work, sleep, eat ice cream and do some laundry).  Funny, though...I know that winter is just long enough for me to detest the thought of it getting dark at 5pm and cringe when the weatherman says 'cold' when that is conjoined with 'darkness' and clouds. I don't really care that I suffer from seasonal allergies from the Bradford Pears in the early spring that make my eyes itch like mad and sneeze occasionally. I am happy that Spring is around the corner!!!

During these cold, dark, cloudy winter days JD and Joe have worked hard to get a system down to assure we have more than enough ice-cream for the warm day rushes and after school trips.  We have plans for umbrellas with more tables outside for the summer and some greenery for the mostly concrete sidewalk area.  I am working on practicing cake techniques and am taking a Wilton Method cake decorating classes and making cakes as the orders come in.  The whole family is involved and thrilled about the coming warm days!

We are excited that the shop is doing well and our plans for the spring & summer are being carefully planned in hopes that we have lines out our doors in the heat of the summer when ice cream is the only way one feels they are able to cool off!

Thank you so much for your support over the last 3 months and we hope to see you soon!!