If you have any experience with Millenials, you know the highest compliment you or something can receive is “dope!”  As in “I bought you some frozen Aunt Jemima pancakes.”  Nicky: “Dope!”  I tried it out at the gym in response to someone’s comment about something or other, but it didn’t go over well.

After procrastinating longer than ever, I baked on Sunday.  And of course it was much easier and more pleasant than I’d expected it to be.  I made 42 Okanagan Harvest Cakes, and now still have to vacuum seal them.  However, I felt very self-satisfied, and hope to continue.

You know I started selling fruitcakes in the fall of 2004, not knowing what it’d all mean.  At first I was renting the kitchen at the United Church, lugging stuff back and forth, and then had the commercial kitchen built downstairs.  For a few years I marketed hard to stores, and was hoping to grow to several thousand sales.

Then one day this spring I went, wait a minute.  This is an artisan product, and if I think I’m going to compete against Mrs. Willman’s mass-produced dreck, then I’ll kill myself.  After a full day of standing my knees are not really all that happy.  And this is followed by days where I don’t stand, and can recuperate.

Hence I’ve decided to keep the numbers much more reasonable, and to make retail sales my goal.  I’ve always dreamt of having a solely mail-order business, and I simply have to work on getting more people to my site to order.  So that’s my new goal: sell the product directly, make smaller numbers, and make the same amount of money.

Right now I’m making 300 pieces of chocolate bark for Source Furniture’s convention in Toronto in October.  My nerves are completely shot, as I still have to make some of the bark, never mind get the ribbon and package it all.  You may recall they ordered in the spring, and people loved it, so I’m thrilled to have them as a customer.

On Wednesday Kathy, her boyfriend David and I went to Osoyoos.  He’s just moved here from the prairies, and had never been to the South Okanagan.  He just loved it, and thankfully the weather was hot and beautiful.

We had lunch at mom’s, and then went to Oroville because Kathy insisted she wanted to buy cheap groceries.  When we crossed the border and the guard asked what we were planning to buy, I said, “Diet food.”

He said, “You’re coming HERE for diet food??” and I explained that the US always has way more variety in strange foods.  I then scoured Princes, but barely found anything vaguely interesting.  I got some frozen bars, sugar-free wafers, and some pudding which is largely inedible.

Today I have to produce my monthly newsletter, but first a trip to the gym is in order for a bit of detoxification. God knows I need it after the amount of Aspartame I’ve consumed since arriving home with the diet food.