Sitting on our deck this Sunday morning. It has been a non stop week. It started with dropping Sigrid and Pippi at camp up north. They were very excited to go to this amazing camp where they have everything you can imagine. Challenges in many different ways, lots of kids wanting to have fun and so many new friends to be made. The cafe' has been slow and that is draining in it self. I start questioning what we are doing and HOW WE CAN DO IT BETTER! I am starting to learn to understand the cycles of running a small business. When it is slow you have to take advantage of the time to organize yourself and the store. My head is always spinning with new ideas and things we can do. Rose and I have a good relationship in these situations. I bounce off my ideas with her and she executes in the front. A small instant idea is that the last couple of days we have offered samples of the salad to anyone that walks in the door. That way the salad was gone in 3 hours on Thursday. People love to get free things and we love to introduce as many people as possible.
I am also working on organizing all our recipes. Printing and laminating is the plan. I am converting all recipes we are using to use the same "language". There are so many languages you can use in recipe writing. I obviously use many swedish recipes that need translation but also when it comes to units and wording- it has to be consistent. Many years ago, when we first moved to Portland I signed up to take a cookbook writing course. I did it just for fun of course but today I find myself digging out old information from that course. Never underestimate the value of ANYTHING you do. There is nothing that's not worth learning- you never know when it could come in handy.
I am reading a "fun" book right now called "Ratio" by Michael Ruhlman. It's not really a cookbook but the science behind cooking and if you know the ratio of ingredients you can cook almost anything based on that. Custards, cookies, vinaigrettes, sauces, breads and lots more.

On to another subject in my life- I am running a marathon in just over a month!! My running partner is up north and it is hard for me to stay focused on the running when she is not around. I am going this afternoon when Mark returns from his business trip. Planning to do 20 km or maybe a bit longer. My other worry is that it will be hard to run when we go to Sweden and France in 10 days. I really have to force myself.......
Writing all this down makes me even more stressed! I have to go and print some of those recipes and get ORGANIZED!!! That is my mantra it seems like. Organized at home, at work, the kids, myself and my training, food at home, the kids clothes, my kitchen, my clothes- it goes on and on!!! I wonder if other people feel this way or if I am lacking some "enzyme" that should make the organizing of my life soooooooo much easier!