By Becky Nelson
Bramblings
In preparation for Thanksgiving and the stacks of pie we make for customers, we start peeling and storing apples early, make up pie boxes early, make sure we have all the fruit and berries we need, and all-around run around like we are possessed by something or other. This year is nothing different, but we had one atrocious couple of days last week as we scrambled to schedule everything and then get everything done. I take the season heavily on my shoulders, with the store and tree handling requiring a lot of part time people and scheduling, the pie-making taking hours, hours and hours, wreath making taking a lot of time to gather the greenery and then a lot of time to make the wreath and bows, the day-to-day tasks of running a business adding to the load and stocking and staffing the store adding a cherry of burden on top. We are a very small business, and lots of the work comes down to us old folks.
If you wrap personal life into the equation, some days can pose a challenge. One of the tough days last week weighed heavily. I got to the store to open up and the pellet stove we use for heat was not working. I immediately thought the worst and thought I was looking at a really tough expense, but after a few hours and a couple of phone calls by a friend and employee, we got ‘er working again.
I was just packing up to get going on the tasks at hand, when I got a distressed call from a neighbor that a small dead pine tree was leaning on the electric wires, sparking and smoldering. A call to the fire department met with voicemails, so I called 911 before things got out of hand and we had a brushfire on our hands. It seems that “when it rains, it pours and when it snows it blizzards,” and I started to feel pretty stressed as everyone seemed to need me at the same time and the workload loomed large.
I started peeling apples when my peeler-corer-slicer broke. I almost sat down and cried, but instead resurrected part of the gadget so it would core and slice, but had to turn to hand peeling the four bushel of apples that sat waiting to go into pies. The pressure was mounting. I then had a call that a staff member wouldn’t be coming to work. Oh, no. Now what? I had made other commitments and appointments so couldn’t cover the store myself. I didn’t want to close on a busy pre-holiday busy day, so scrambled through my list of potentials, landing on a former employee who was actually reaching out hoping for a part-time job. Karma? Divine hand? Did some entity or deity see my struggles and help out?
Earlier in the week I had reached out to a fellow Christmas tree grower and wreath-maker to see if I could lighten the wreath-making load, as I am the only one on staff now who makes them. He was swamped with orders and short on help, so couldn’t help me this year. Ouch. Another burden on my arthritic and tired shoulders. I was looking at pretty long after-hours to make things work and fill orders, when another of my former employees, a college student, said she was home for a few days for Thanksgiving and did I have a few hours for her? I almost cried with relief, as she was also one of my former wreath-makers. Another gift from heaven.
In all my away-from-the-house task tackling, I had neglected the dog. We dog-sit a few days a week for a family member’s pet while their family is working, and I hadn’t made my couple-hours check and pee break. I did not make it back to the house before she relieved herself. In mid-cleanup, I noticed a red spot on the floor and though the worst. Not only had I not made it to the house to let the dog out, she had found something to hurt herself and was bleeding. I called her out of her nesting site and checked her all over. Seeing no visible blood I thought the worst, as I do, and figured internal bleeding and an emergency vet visit. How could I handle this on a pressure filled day? I finally cleaned up the red spot and it was jam … spilled from my husband’s morning toast.
I then rushed around the house, checking pockets and all the places my wallet and keys weren’t, starting to panic that I would be late for my first appointment. My husband then entered the house, too early to be finished with his wellness check, saying the clinic was cancelling all wellness appointments because they were short staffed. It wasn’t just us. We are all in the same teetering canoe.
I was worried that the Thanksgiving snowstorm would add to the workload in a rough way, but the snow wasn’t a blizzard and the sun is shining again. It’s not one of those days today, and I plan to brighten my attitude and take a breath now and again. If things don’t get done, they just don’t and the world won’t end and that I will be OK.
We all have one of those days. Or multiple of those days. In this busiest of seasons, we need to just relax a bit, think horses and not zebras, take a mental break once in a while, be thankful for those forces that seem to align stars and help us survive and cope, and breathe. I plan to focus on the beauty and the lovely around me more. I hope you will join me, have patience with one another and not get too stressed. We need not make mountains of molehills … that’s a bad habit of us humans.
