Insomnia

Note: This blog was actually posted last night, or early this morning, on Digest, UrHo's food blog. I was restless with insomnia when I wrote it, but obviously not awake enough to realize I was posting for the wrong blog. I think of this post as the equivalent of a drunken phone call--something I wish I hadn't done but obviously needed to get off my chest. I feel much better today and I have been reminded to 1)address unfinished business before going to bed so that I don't wake up and dwell on it, and 2) refrain from caffeinated beverages after 12 pm. Enjoy!

It's 1 am. I have to wake up in 3.5 hours but I've just spent the last hour laying awake in bed fretting about numerous details. Then, I started composing a blog in my head. I figured I should just get up and sit in the cold, dark living room rather than driving insane those in my bed who are actually able to sleep. The Acorn is fully operational now, with the exception of a missing credit card terminal which has been the main focus of my insomnia all week. I'm guessing we're losing about half our business right now because inept "merchant service representatives", or one in particular, has taken nearly 4 weeks to set up our account properly. I have to stop trusting my instincts when it comes to people, because I kind of liked/felt sorry for this kid who wanted to sell us our credit card processing system and it's been one nightmare after another. I don't think I could even look at him again, I am so enraged/embarrassed by his ineptitude and the ineptitude he represents. I am more upset about the sleep I am losing than the business, in all honesty. It's really hard for me to function without a full 7 or 8 hours of sleep, especially when I'm waking up at the ungodly hour of 4. Me me me, blah blah blah. We've also hired 3 new people this month, and the management and employment of 10 people is a huge shift, worthy of many, many sleepless nights. I am finally realizing that I need to hire a bookkeeper, but it's tax season so no one is returning my phone calls. It also appears that I have lost the ability to bake a cake: 4 of the 5 cakes (coffee cake, butter cake) have failed in the last week. Surely it's the ovens. Supplying both Half & Half and The Acorn with fresh pastries in the morning and then lunch before 11 (for Acorn) from my commercial kitchen has proven to be a lot harder than it looked on paper. All the driving is depressing on a number of levels, and since we need to be out of the kitchen at noon, I have yet to finish a day in which I've crossed out everything on my list.

I know that all of this stuff will get hammered out within a couple of weeks. We'll have a credit card machine on Thursday, god willing. We'll get a van and someone else, the 11th employee, can be the delivery driver. I will learn how to bake a cake again. In the meantime, I am making some of the best sandwiches of "my career" since we got the commercial kitchen, for both places. And the prohibitive cost of avocados has resulted in an ingeniously resourceful condiment for our vegan BLT--'eda-mole': pureed edamame with garlic, lemon and olive oil. Ok, I now have 3 hours until I have to get up. Maybe I'll just sleep in until 5 and save myself the trouble of destroying another coffee cake. On that note!