A weekend filled with catering events is good for the soul!

An ice cream week...

What does a typical week-in-the life look like for an ice cream lady in off season?  To help answer this question, I made a point to jot down notes of each day last week.

 

Monday - Monday morning begins with one of my least favorite tasks.......stopping by good old Restaurant Depot to pick up some milk and other supplies needed to get production started until our regular delivery of milk arrives.  From there, I ran around to a few stores looking for dry ice.  Dry ice can be hard to get a hold of now a days, but I finally found some.  We typically get a delivery once a week from a local supplier but the same situation as Restaurant Depot....sometimes we need a little to supplement before our delivery.  Once I dropped off those supplies to our factory, it's time to finally sit down for my usual Monday checklist.  This consists of social media and promotion planning for the week, blog posting, ordering all supplies and ingredients, payroll, weekly budgeting, scheduling email blasts, and everything else needed to get the week off to a productive start.  I popped into the production room to film some 'Behind The Scenes' of pie production and halloween pint production (check that out on our Instagram + new YouTube channel.  Last task on the list for while I'm at the factory is to print labels for our new acai + pitaya bowls that are heading to BWI Airport on Wednesday and scheduled a delivery with the airport's logistics company.  Finally it's time to head home, go for a quick run + make a quick dinner, and then jump back on the computer until bedtime.  Monday's are always the longest of days but all for a good cause :)

 

Tuesday - Tuesday was a much needed day of catch up.  Catching up on emails, more budgeting (tis the season of planning to have the best year every next season), prepping photos and videos for social media, updating marketing materials with our new flavors, and the never ending task of working on the website.  I enjoy this task SO much but I could spend hours upon hours working on it daily so some days I need to remind myself to put the computer down and go outside for a few.  So that's exactly what I did, time for a run!

 

Wednesday - Wednesday's task was working on getting our team set up to use a new project management software called Asana.  This will help our production team communicate with our sales / marketing and also help me manage my always changing daily to-do-lists.  We have weekly calls on Monday mornings where we game plan and strategize for the week and I'm very excited to organize all projects in Asana from here on out.

 

Thursday - We recently moved our manufacturing facility to Kent Island and navigating the location change has been quite the challenge these past few months.  I have been trying to limit my time on the road, so that's where planning my days ahead of time becomes even more important.  So today I head bridge bound to the factory in my painting clothes ready for a fun filled day of colors!  Painting crates, pallets and extra wood scraps I picked up from Home Depot the other day.  I'm not the best with tools...but there is only one way to learn how to do this kind of stuff.  Stay tuned for a pretty fun new catering set up to be used for a few new products.

 

Friday - Friday turned into another day of design!  I spent the day updating our custom labels for online orders and catering.  Once the designs were complete I added them as an option during checkout of our online store, printed some samples and took photos.  I feel like I spent half of my day messing with the label printer, turned it on and off a hundred times, and finally it decided to be nice and start working.  This printer has the tendency to drive me crazy at times but I stand by the fact that it is one of the best purchases I ever made.  Having the ability to print either 10 or 10,000 labels at any time is life changing and gives us so much creativity with our products.  We have an Lx900, which I believe is an older model, but you can still find them and you can also still get parts for them.  Finally, I made production plan and delivery schedule for next week, confirmed all orders with customers and headed to the warehouse to get ready for a weekend filled with events!

 

Saturday - Another day, another road trip!  Saturday morning I drove eastbound to the factory.  When I arrived, I quickly printed some more halloween labels, loaded the van and headed back to Baltimore for a catering event!  This event was a fundraiser and was way fun!  Live music, DJ, good food and good people.  Catering sets my soul on fire and makes me the proudest ice cream lady on the planet.  I had no idea how much I missed it in 2020 until it came back.....and now I cannot get enough of it!

 

Sunday - Sunday consisted of catering event round two.  We booked this one last minute but it turned out to be a beautiful day and yet another proud ice cream lady moment.  Seeing people eat (and most importantly enjoy) a product that you created in your home kitchen is a pretty wild feeling.  It makes me happier than I can describe.  This party was a luau thrown equally for the adults as it was the kids.  It was outside on the water on Gibson Island and we could have stayed there for days.  Check out the videos on Instagram and YouTube!

 

Fun fact....when you own the business, you don't look forward to Friday's anymore because what is a weekend?? :)  I feel so lucky to be doing what I am and I wouldn't change it for the world. 

 

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