why I suck at cookie calculus (I almost failed pre-calc. . .)
business news ft. april + early may (graduation) availability update 📋
head to the bottom for an update on april and may availability!
I can still feel the hot, tingly flush flooding my body when my math teacher passed out our first test results of junior year. Flipping the paper over, I almost immediately flipped it back, hoping no one saw the bright orange 65 circled at the top—or my bright red cheeks—before class let out. I left absolutely sunk.
“You’re a girl, not a grade,” a quote from my grandmother, was the only comfort ringing in my ears as I slunk over to French class across the hall, wearing my failure like a sunburn.
After making all A’s in my math classes the first two years of high school, my college counselor thought it’d do me well to move up to the honors track. It seemed like a good move to me too. Enter: Honors Pre-Calc/Trig. Little did I know, honors classes were not just more complex, but used a totally different method of learning: the tests weren’t assessing your ability to recall information with questions we had answered before, but apply the theories we learned to never-been-seen-before problems. My brain short circuited that first test. Wait, we never did this one in class?!?
I wish I could say that one taste of failure left my mouth bitter enough to muster up an A by the next unit exam, like that nail polish for people who bite their nails. But I never cracked 80. Pre-Calc left my ego bruised and my transcript marked by a scarlet letter C.
I’ve got a strong Enneagram 3 wing, so trust that this was not for lack of effort. I tried my best to keep up, study, and attend my teacher’s office hours. But I felt like I was in the I Love Lucy chocolate factory. Everything escalated exponentially from uhh I think I can do this to UMMM oh dear God I’m never going to be able to catch up.
My “best” baseline had shifted that year: in part to the always-building-on-itself structure of mathematics, and in (significant) part to the fact that my grandmother, Mimi, was moving into our home to spend her final months of life with us in Hospice. While it isn’t a year I’d want to live over again, I'd certainly choose an F on my report card any day for the gift of sharing that time with her. (As an aside: she rose to glory the week before my final exams and blew past every. single. estimate. the doctors had of her life expectancy. They called her the Energizer Bunny: the woman kicked cancer’s ass for 19 years!! She would have been 83 last Sunday 🩵)
Though the season of my parents helping me figure out my math homework has since passed, they’ll often generously clock in for a shift every now and then day to kindly help me figure out my cookie math. (i.e. what to say yes to, how many orders I should take, when to open my books, how to respond to an email. . .you get the idea)
This teenage vignette came to my mind recently when my mom reflected that while they can help me sift through the options to some extent, they’re out of their wheelhouse: “You used to be doing Algebra but this is Calculus now,” she said.
One definition of Calculus is “the summation of infinitely many small factors” and LORDY if that does not describe the overwhelming decision-making that racks my daily entrepreneurial life!! Everyone makes a million tiny decisions everyday, but for entrepreneurs, there is often a lack of structure or authority informing like, 90% of them. You are that structure and that authority! So, the interplay of how adjusting one variable affects the other variables and what if you changed this one and oh wait that thing just dropped but just kidding it’s still on and all the while knowing: I’m the one who decided this so do I really have to stick to it????
It made me think of a phrase my stellar functional medicine doctor & entrepreneur-extraordinaire, Dr. Kristin Oja*, lives by: “little by little, a little becomes a lot.” This idea has been deeply encouraging to me when making small steps in the right direction. It reminds me of a favorite Bible verse, “Don’t despise the day of small things, for the Lord delights to see the work begin.”
But ironically, it just hit me that it is also true on the reverse! Little by little this business has become a LOT for one person to handle. Which don’t get me wrong—is SUCH a gift! Daily I delight in the abundance of celebration, opportunity, connection, art, and creativity the Lord has flourished Cookie in the Kitchen with. 💐 And yet, this garden is looking preeeetty overgrown.
*p.s. I could not recommend Kristin & STAT Wellness in ATL more if you’re in need of a rec!! (And they’re about to open a Nashville location :)
I brought up the variable x volume overwhelm up to my counselor in the new year (as I do in a slightly different flavor every time I talk to her lol), in the form of this question: “What should I prioritize this year? What should I worry about, and what can I afford to not worry about?”
She encouraged me to think about my business within the concept of dominion and stewardship: pruning the garden back so that it can flourish, giving creation shape and form, and considering how I can rule over it, vs a tyrannical relationship where it rules over me.
In the almost-3 years since I graduated from college, my overall perspective on CITK has essentially been to let it grow wherever it may; I started and cultivated it for 12 years while also being a student, and I wanted to see what shape it would take when allowed to exist without the constraints of school. Like I said, wow has it grown!!!! But as my pastor said once, “it’s hard to maintain health during seasons of growth.” Having a clunky order system and lack of clarity around my availability hurts my heart to not have a hospitable garden to welcome y’all into right now.
And goodness, my tiny gardening sheers are just not cutting it anymore; I can barely clean up my inbox before a plethora of weeds pop back up two days later. This business has simply outgrown me! But for such a delicate garden with elaborate and personalized cookie art, intentionally crafted social media accounts, and meaningful client relationships, you can’t use pull in any hired hands to wrangle the overgrowth. So what to?!
Speaking of gardens, please enjoy this recent painting by my INSANELY talented sister, Abigail, who broke a 10 year creative hiatus with THIS MASTERPIECE HELLO?! Follow along with her art insta here!
Well, after lots and lots of conversations to consider who to hire and when to hire, the Lord very kindly made a decision very clear to me in the last month. Like the statue on the left in Abigail’s painting, enter my garden’s knight in shining armor: Ellevated Outcomes! I’ve officially signed on as a client with Julie Sellers and her team for small business strategy—can I get a woop woop! 🥳
I met Julie last May after a client of hers ordered cookies from me and told us we HAD to meet. I immediately could tell why he put us together. Julie is a sophisticated, warm, (badass,) and incredibly smart woman with a heart for helping small business owners steward their resources well and loosen the bottleneck around one person. (It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me)
We officially start next week so perhaps I’m putting the cart before the horse here. . . but as everything has been a blindingly bright green flag so far, I think it’s safe to break the news to y’all now. ;)
One thing Julie has hit on in our preliminary conversations is EO’s care to ensure that we’re solving the right problem.
When she said that it immediately made me think of aforementioned Dr. Kristin Oja, whose approach to medicine is similar. I went to her for help with eczema: Instead of adding another steroid prescription to the stack, she looked at my blood work, nutrients, diet, and lifestyle to see where and why my skin was reacting to something. Turns out I have a mild gluten allergy, who knew! (Honestly who doesn’t these days lol)
The thing about finding the right problem to solve is that it takes not only a lot of skill, creativity, and creative deductive reasoning. . .but time.
Just like I had to sit through a couple uncomfortable months of my skin sorting itself out, quite literally from the inside out, I know that starting to clear out this garden will have a similarly long runway.
So, while stressing over sending this email to announce my lack of availability for custom orders (as I do just about every month) my mom reminded me first, “help is on the way <3,” and then asked me:
What does grace look like for you right now?
Gosh, what a kind question. (I encourage you to pause & ask yourself the same one!)
I took a minute to think about it and remembered how I had recently belabored my sister with all the ways I was failing and flailing at life, when she also extended a gracious word:
“Emily, you’re giving yourself a performance review on every single personal + business front—and you’re being a very ungracious boss to yourself. Now is not the time for that.”
An answer arose: patience.
Patience to sit in the messy inbox.
Patience to discover the right problem to solve.
Patience to learn new ways of doing things.
Patience for God to show up with direction and clarity.
Patience for my own self to grow.
Gosh, how would the world change—how would we change—if we were even just an *ounce* more patient? And maybe ask yourself: where could you use an extra serving of patience today?
update on april and may availability!
While Julie and I get our hands dirty in this garden to find the right problem to solve, I ask for your patience—and extend thanks for all of the ways you already have been patience with me. <3
Sadly, I won’t be opening any availability for April. :( I’m SO sorry and sad to miss out on y’all’s celebrations. I’ve been realizing how truly limited my cookie capacity has gotten as other areas of my business have expanded, so some out of town weekends and bulk orders slashed my availability quicker than normal. (For example, when I went first time I used to book 5-6 orders per week and now I can only do 1-3. 😔 You can see why I need Julie’s help STAT!)
But listen up, May 1-3rd graduation folks!!
Since there are a lot of y’all vying for Belmont grad cookies, I’ll be offering a presale to help as many mouths get cookies as possible! 💋
Here’s whatcha need to know:
There will be 3 designs, similar to these sets below (name, class of 2025, diploma), with customization for names. Price is in my simply sweet tier, so $100/dz. I won’t apply my usual 1 dozen flat rate for the presale, so it’ll be $100/dz for both 1 dz or for 2+ dz!
Pickups will be on Thursday, May 1st with limited availability for Friday, May 2nd (AM only). Note this is different from my usual Friday/Saturday pickups—I’m squeezin’ this in before traveling out of town that weekend, so we’re makin’ it work. 😗
The presale link / order form will be sent out in another Substack email on Wednesday, April 2nd at 6:00 PM!
(Going on a writing retreat led by my favorite author, Mari Andrew!!!! I’m STOKED but the date overlap is less than ideal haha)
Other May orders:
I’ll only be able to offer this grad presale for May 1-3 dates, so sadly I’m unavailable for other celebrations that week. :( For the rest of May, (9th-31st), hang tight! As usual I’m still sorting out my calendar—so you’ll get another email in a few weeks with an update if I’m booking for your dates.
Since I’m not always available, I totally understand if y’all need to opt for a different cookier to lock something in for certain sooner! But if CITK cookies have captured your heart specifically, I’m so very grateful for your ~patience~ & I’d love to celebrate with y’all as my schedule allows.
Alright, that’s all from me for now—see y’all graduates on Wednesday at 6 PM!
-Cookie <3