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Marty is not only a great business partner and husband, but he is also my best friend and knows me better than I know myself sometimes. 

I woke up this morning weepy. Honestly, you never know when something will trigger an old emotional trauma. I couldn’t shake experiencing a painful open wound again from my childhood this morning. My nine-year-old self, to be exact, the age my nephew turned yesterday. Then it all made sense. 

After working alone in silence and shedding some tears when I was washing dishes for over an hour, I shut off the music we were listening to…Elton John radio. It had nothing to do with Elton; the songs just kept bringing me back to that painful time period.

After the dishes were caught up for the moment, I joined Marty in the packing room. He asked why I turned off the music. I immediately started crying and told him what was going on. He listened and said it was good I was talking about it; he understood how I felt. 

After production was over and we were back inside the house, I realized I felt better. Talking to him helped me move forward and not get sucked into that dark place. Basically, he threw me a rope, and I climbed up it quickly. 

A lot of things happened to me emotionally after I turned 9. You know what? It made me the strong person I am today. Being strong and working through stuff alone made things worse for me as I grew up; I had to pay for it. But you know what? That was ok. I was supposed to be the victim of verbal and emotional abuse, but I didn’t play the victim on the outside; I never showed a thing. However, on the inside was a whole different thing. 

Growing up, I didn’t share what really went on through the years with my friends. They knew when I was upset over things, but not the constant shit that happened every day. I actually thought I was a terrible person, and that was why I was treated the way I was. I was embarrassed that all the turmoil might have really been my fault. My severe ulcerative colitis was definitely all my fault too, right? 

I found out about 10 years ago that it wasn’t my fault. Not any of it. It was the best gift my Aunt Claire ever gave me when out of the blue, she brought up my childhood on the phone one night. She suddenly apologized, saying, “no one ever did anything about it. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one acted.” It was a moment I will never forget. A moment I finally knew that it wasn’t me at all. 

She went on telling me I was a really good kid who just wanted to please everyone. Aunt Claire told me how strong I was, unlike everyone in our family was. I thanked her for telling me and bringing it up after 40 years. This information changed my life forever; it felt wonderful. She passed away after having complications from surgery not too long after that. 😭

After some therapy, a lot of energy work, and self-healing over the last 10 years, I am in a great place. The whole shitty situation growing up helped me be a better mother. It made me treat our sons with respect and dignity. It made me chose my words carefully. I never called them by anything other than their names. It made our family a family. For all of that, I am grateful. 

I am a strong person who still wants to please people, but now I can walk away and say fuck it if the person or the situation isn’t worth it.

Marty is my rock star and my support system. He knows how to get me back to my fun Julzie self again. How lucky is that? 🤩

My blog posts are being written later and later every day, it seems. I love writing my blog pieces and make sure I sit down and write every day. It keeps me grounded, and I love sharing my life with you. 

I noticed last Saturday morning, I woke up with energy, and it lasted all day. The same thing happened on Sunday and today too. I think it’s safe to say that the extreme fatigue and exhaustion that hit me like a ton of bricks after my second vaccine is gone after 2 1/2 weeks. It also took 2 1/2 weeks after the first shot for the horrible headaches to go away. The good news is…I’m back, dammit! 

Today we were up and out in the production kitchen at the ass crack of dawn. We had to go to Saratoga, NY afterward to make a delivery and decided to do a little shopping while we were there. 

Picking up 30 bags of brown mulch isn’t too exciting, but finding gluten-free chocolate and glazed donuts, chicken & veggie egg rolls, cheese ravioli, and fresh linguine was like hitting the jackpot! 

I saw the donuts in the freezer case and jumped up and said, “ Oh yes!” Why the fuck is this a big deal? Because you can’t get gluten-free chocolate-covered donuts like these anywhere but Aldi. I love Aldi, but you have to understand that when they get something wonderful in, it may not be back for 6 months to a year. So you have to stock up.

Before I had to go gluten-free, I loved Entenmann’s chocolate-covered donuts; these gluten-free ones are pretty damn close! I only eat one donut at a time, spaced out, so they last. I got 4 boxes and 2 glazed for Marty. 😊 They haven’t been in stores for a year.

We never saw the egg rolls before, so I am excited to try them. I miss Chinese fried food terribly. I think every gluten-free person that I know does too. The cheese ravioli and fresh linguine are great in a pinch, especially when the spätzle makers have zero spätzle on hand for themselves and want a simple bowl of pasta. 

We didn’t get home until after 5 pm, and I had to get cracking on dinner. Our oldest son Noah was coming for dinner. I had everything mise en placed for dinner, thank goodness. I made Kimchi Rice Balls with Korean beef and rice flake noodles with veggies. I’ve never made this meal for Noah before, but I thought he would like it. 

Like it??? Well shit, we never saw him eat so much and with such gusto Marty said. I think he had thirds. I asked him if he wanted the leftovers for lunch and he quickly said to throw those rice balls things and sauce in there too. 🤣

Nothing makes me happier when people like my food, but when my sons love it I am over the moon. 

After dinner, we joined a birthday zoom call for my nephew Julian who turned 9 today. It was adorable; everyone singing him happy birthday. Finally, I did the dishes and boom…it was 9:00 pm. 

The days are long but having my energy back makes these long days manageable again. The only thing that has taken a back seat is finding the time to work out. I haven’t given up, as a matter of fact, Marty weight lifted with me twice last week.  I can’t work out too late or I won’t sleep, so we need to squeeze in an hour whenever we can. Today was impossible.

I’m finishing up this blog piece with a glass of wine while both dogs are snoring away on the couch. Marty is in bed already. I love ending my day by having a little peace and quiet time alone. Goodnight guys…don’t let the bed bugs bite!

I am getting better at living in the moment. This past year has changed me and the way I live…on the journey and not the destination. 

Today I woke up, pulled up the dark out shade, and saw the sun shining. I asked Alexa what the temp was, and she replied, “64 degrees.” I ran down the stairs, downed my morning water, and put on a pot of coffee. 

Within 10 minutes, we were sitting on our front porch having our coffee, the one day a week we can enjoy it and don’t have to gulp it down. I cherish my Sunday’s and when a little sunshine is in the cards, even better. 

After an hour, the sun started slipping behind the clouds that were rolling in. We knew the rain would be coming in by noon. Marty quickly mowed the lawn while I made us breakfast. He had to get the mowing done since it’s forecasted to rain for the next three days again. 

We have another hectic week coming up, lots of product to make, deliveries, yard work, more projects to get done in the house, and belly dance on Wednesday!  

The journey I am on took us straight out to our front porch this morning. We got to enjoy hot coffee, the sunshine, birds singing, the beautiful flowering trees, and how green & full the grass is getting. These little things we took for granted and missed when we were always rushing to reach the next destination. Namaste. ☺️

This morning when we left for the first official summer market at the Troy Farmers Market, hello, it was 36 degrees and snowing. I posted this picture on Instagram, and the market manager wasn’t thrilled that I was promoting snow. Oppps, my bad. In my defense, I did say the forecast called for sunny 60-degree weather.

We expected it to be cold and windy. I dressed for the middle of winter. We froze our asses off! Just when we didn’t think we could be any colder, Marty said with a big smile, his dimpled smile, “Well, at least we only have 3 1/2 more hours to go. 😱

Last Saturday at the market, I counted 87 women with crop tops on. It became funny that every time I finished with one of our customers and looked up, I saw 7 or 8 more. I counted 87, and I was busy; there could have been 200 if I were just people watching and not working.

I’m totally down with the crop tops. I like them and wore them back in the day. I think they are super cute. The thing that puzzled me the crap out of me is that they all wore them with high-waisted jeans, shorts, or sweatpants. 

These were high-waisted pants, the kind that is practically up to your armpits! Those went out in the 80s for a reason. Then they became known as “mom” jeans. 

I saw a post on a friend’s Facebook page something about high-waisted pants and that she couldn’t find anything else when she was shopping. This fad is not a cool retro comeback like ponchos & gaucho pants. I did have a customer who wore a real tan leather Member Only jacket that was awesome!

The point of the whole thing is…I only saw one crop top with mom jeans today. There were also many people wearing shorts and tank tops mixed in with everyone else who looked like they were bundled up for Christmas caroling. The folks in shorts and tank tops arms and legs were beet red! No one is going to bullshit me they weren’t cold. Their skin gave them away. 

Finally, around noon the sun came out. It was a total game-changer. I was able to take off my gloves and unzipped my down coat, but it was still very windy. The other game-changer of the day was when our vendor neighbor Joann gave me an anti-fog wipe for my glasses since they were fogged up most of the morning. IT WORKED! I have a box of them in our Amazon cart as I type. The mask-wearing must almost be over since I finally found these; that’s how things go for me. They won’t go to waste; they can be used to clean glasses as well. 😛

Suddenly, a parade with a wooden Trojan horse and a group of people wearing togas marched through the market. This was a planned event, and the market got a heads up they were coming. 

The city of Troy is slowly and safely reopening. A group decided to celebrate the reopening on May 1. The Trojan signified something that even after reading an article about it, I would be making shit up trying to explain it to you. 

Behind the wooden Trojan horse were women holding a fabric sail with little boats made from cardboard, pieces of paper, and toothpicks. I heard they went around the market asking people if they had things they wanted to release or let go of from 2020. These little boats had those things written on them and would be released or set free. I personally think most people would just like to forget 2020 even existed, although it will go down in history.

Another part of the May 1 celebration was going to take place at 8:35 pm over the Hudson River. The city listened to people who had animals, parents of autistic children, and people who have PTSD. Instead of having a fireworks display, they would be hosting the first silent drone light show spectacular. They hired a company that specializes in this type of choreographed light displays. 

The company will fly drones to create shapes like a heart, a person walking, and for the finale, the light show will spell out the city’s name TROY. People can watch the light show from the Hudson River Promenade. All social distancing and other guidelines will be in place, making it a safe event. The light show can be seen for 5 miles for people who don’t want to go down to the riverfront. 

There will be music available on a streaming radio station that people can tune into that corresponds with the light show. This is a very new and thoughtful way of celebrating instead of using fireworks. Our dog Otto is terrified of fireworks, and it is heartbreaking watching him suffer. People here in VT shoot off fireworks for every occasion. 

Today turned out to be a good day. The customers who came out early braved the cold, and the smart ones came when the sun came out. 😉 We appreciate all of them who come and support the market, farmers, and our fellow vendors. 

Each week, people are still following all the guidelines that have to be enforced, but everyone seems to be in good moods; they have a bounce in their step again and are happy to get their lives back slowly.  All hail to the Trojan!

We got into the production kitchen super early this morning because we had a couple of projects that we wanted to work on in the house. 

We quickly ate some leftovers for lunch, hit the bank and the store to pick up a few things. As soon as we got home, we dove into our projects. 

When we start one project, it turns into two, then three, and usually more. It’s one of those things that turns into a cluster-fuck pretty quickly. 

It’s very much like the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone saying. We needed to get a new fridge for our mudroom. The big bar fridge and we had and loved shit the bed a month ago. 

We had the guys from the cooling and heating place take a look.  We both know the two guys John and Joe, from our school lunch director days. Every day when you walk into a school kitchen, you would literally hold your breath and check all the fridges and freezers. It was a royal pain in the ass and costly when one went down. 

John and Joe were honest that it would be expensive to fix with no guarantee that it would work for any given time. We appreciated their honesty and decided not to fix it. We decided to keep it as a bar and repurpose it. 

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Marty took out all the innards of the bar fridge. We are going to use it as an industrial liquor/storage cabinet. I saw some for $3,000-$5,000 online. We always try to repurpose it whenever we can. I like the ones above, but not for that kind of dough!

After we designed what we wanted, we couldn’t believe there was a chain store in Albany, NY, called Metal Supermarket. Who would think such a thing existed? We went in with our door measurements, picked out the type of metal and design we wanted, and they called us in less than 2 hours, our order was ready! The metal screens fit like a glove.

We are pleased with how the doors came out; now we still have to add back the black shelves from when it was still a bar fridge and pick up some black baskets to organize things other than bottles.

When we decided not to fix the bar fridge, at first, I was like, “It will be fine.” Well, it wasn’t fine. We have many bulk condiments jars we get at Restaurant Depot, lots of sauces, jams, and pickled things. 

When we got home from the grocery store earlier in the week, I couldn’t fit my produce and meats I bought in my home kitchen fridge. I put a bunch of stuff in the walk-in refrigerator we have outside for the business. The word “outside” is the dead giveaway of why that shit wasn’t going to fly with me every time I wanted some mayonnaise. 

Marty started searching on Facebook Marketplace for a used under-the-counter commercial fridge. He found one at 8 pm last night and was in the car at 8:10 pm on his way to pick it up. Typical Irion family behavior. LOL

Marty finds the most amazing deals. He found all of our used commercial equipment for the spätzle business on Facebook Marketplace, and he sells stuff on there as well. 

He came home with a practically brand new refrigerator exactly as we wanted. He got a $1600 piece of equipment for $250 bucks. And…it works!

That new piece of equipment set off a shit show of moving things around to see where to put it. Then we moved the loveseat to another wall. We moved a sideboard table up to the loft of the mudroom. Then dug out a lamp to light the loft space. It goes on and on.

Next, I had to wash the walls; Marty had to redo all the electrical items like the surveillance system and the main hub for Alexa and a bunch of other electronic things. 

After lots of vacuuming, scrubbing, and rearranging, the mudroom is better than ever and is so much roomier. The dogs are pissed that they can’t jump up on the couch and stalk us from the windows anymore.

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The rest of the house turned into a mess because we moved stuff out of the mudroom. At one point, I had to say that’s enough. We still had our farmer’s market to get ready for. 

Friday nights, Marty packs our coolers and keeps them in the walk-in until morning. He loads the tent, weights, signs, and a giant box of stuff we need for the market. 

Inside, I make some Thai curry for lunch for us at the market. The delicious smells from vendors cooking all day during the market make me hungry the whole time. 

I also get our bank, breakfast, coffee, my clothes, and other stuff ready. We get up at 4:30 am, so I need to have everything ready. Tomorrow, we have to leave around 5:45 am; we have a delivery to make before the market. 

As I sit here typing while the calzones that I made for dinner are in the oven, the only room of the house that isn’t a total fucking disaster is the mudroom we worked on all afternoon. The rest of it will have to wait until Sunday. It kills me since we keep a pretty clean and tidy home all the time, especially since it’s just been the two of us while Sam is away at college.

Well…Happy Friday! Yes, I am having a cocktail while I am getting everything ready for market day. My calzones (gluten-free) just came out of the oven and look amazing! Yay!😜

I was excited all day yesterday that we were having in person dance classes again. 

After we got back from making deliveries, I worked on a music playlist for my Tribal Workout, a warm-up with strength training exercises before the actual classes start. 

I rested while I was working on the playlist. I was having trouble putting something together. I used to make 2 or 3 playlists with no problem, so I guess I was out of practice. Even after we used the playlist I made, it still wasn’t right, and I have to come up with another one for next week.

When I started getting my dance gear out, I was a little nervous. I don’t know why; I’ve been dancing and teaching for 18 years. It was like how I used to get nervous the night before school started again when I was a kid. 

As soon as I got to the parking lot of the gym where we dance, I saw Maria and Kat, who were also excited to be dancing together again. As soon as I started talking to them I fell right back into my comfortable dancer/teacher mode. 😊

I decided instead of starting the first night back with formal classes; we just danced for fun to a lot of our favorite music. Everyone could evaluate what they would need to work on each week. Usually, people say their arms or posture. When you think of dance, you think of feet right? But feet and footwork are only a quarter of it.

It was warm and humid in the training room of the gym where we dance. After the 20-minute Tribal Workout, my face was red, and I was sweaty; it felt good. 

Once we started dancing, it was as if no time had really passed. I’ve been dancing with these women for so long; it felt natural and easy. It wasn’t like “riding a bicycle,” but more like coming home again. 

On the way home, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t exhausted; my legs felt like rubber. Even though I’ve been working out and dancing a bit, I was completely done, a “put a fork in me” kind of done.

Next week, I will be dancing an hour more. Kathleen and I have an hour mid-afternoon before dance classes begin to keep up our skills and stay as a tight duet. Since there will be actual teaching during classes, there won’t be as much dancing for Kathleen and me because we will explain technique, demonstrate, observe, and help make corrections and lots of drilling. After all the technical stuff is over, we dance in groups and have fun.

It really felt great being back to belly dance! I suspect that some other dancers drove home exhausted as I did. I was happy I made those chili stuffed sweet potatoes ahead of time. Marty baked them in the oven while I was on my way home; dinner was on the plate in less than 10 minutes.

I walked in close to 8:30 pm, had a cocktail with our dinner, struggled to stay awake, took a steaming hot shower, and crawled in bed before 9:30. I can’t wait to do it again next week! Yip! 😊

It’s happened more than once to me; I have a moon hangover. It doesn’t happen that often, but after being exhausted and out of it all day, I realized it’s from the moon. I haven’t had a moon hangover since a couple of summers ago. 

If you haven’t figured it out yet, that Julzie person is a total wacko! I am extremely sensitive to “energy” and the effect of the moon. 

Usually, before a full moon, I have endless energy like the energizer bunny. I can’t sleep, but I’m not tired at all during the day. This can go on for days.

I’ve joked for years that I am part werewolf because I always feel like and have howled at the moon. One of my all-time favorite scenes from a movie is from Moonstruck, “Snap out of it!” I also dream of dancing around a fire during a full moon with my dance sisters.

When our boys were young, and even now, I make them and Marty come out to see the moon in all her glory. Our wedding song was Moonlight in Vermont.

When Klaus was a puppy, the two of us would walk the floors at night; he couldn’t sleep during a full moon either. He kept wanting to go outside and lookup. The two of us would sit on the back steps when it was warm enough outside. This full moon, he had Marty up 3 times in the middle of the night. 😬

This month I had trouble sleeping the night before the full moon, but I actually slept last night on the actual full moon. I woke up rested, but after an hour into production, I struggled to keep up at my usual pace. 

The funny thing about feeling like I was dragging, we actually finished up quicker than usual. I needed hard-core dance music to keep pushing me along. 

After production, we had lunch, and I took a nap. A deep nap. Marty’s phone rang twice; I woke up and fell right back to sleep. That never happens when I am catnapping. 

If I didn’t feel this way before, hungover after a full moon, I would think it was just a repercussion from work and my shots. But not being able to focus and feeling like I am going in slow motion is how I’ve felt before. 

One time on a Saturday, my usual 10-minute farmers market set up took me over an hour. It wasn’t until a bunch of other weirdos like me started talking about how strong the full moon was the night before. Then it made sense…moon hangover.

Right now, I am sitting on our back deck, recharging myself and enjoying the warm sunshine. I have a zillion things I could be doing, but those things can wait. We have 3 days of rain in the forecast, so I’m getting in my vitamin d while I can.

We are on the road again tomorrow; we will be leaving early in the morning. We have to pick up some ingredients for the business, then hit the Vermont delivery trail. Our route begins in Saratoga, NY. Next, we have to head an hour and a half to Pittsford, VT. Then to down to Rutland, Dorset, and finally Pawlet to finish the route.

We aim to be back from deliveries by mid-afternoon; hopefully, I can have time to rest a little. I want to be raring to go since I return to teaching belly dance classes tomorrow night at 5:45 and won’t be home until almost 8:30 pm. 

I’ve been waiting for over a year to be able to go back to dance classes and teach my usual Julzie way without worrying about wearing a mask. Yip!

I’m not making a formal meal tonight; we will both fend for ourselves. However,  I am making vegetarian chili stuffed sweet potatoes to reheat for us when I get home from dance tomorrow night. I’ve made the same mistake a hundred times coming in tired and hungry, then trying to cook something and getting bitchy. 

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These stuffed sweet potatoes are full of protein and flavor. They reheat fast and aren’t too heavy when I want to crash into bed an hour later. Eaten with a glass of wine and I will be out like a light!

Is it a terrible thing that I am extremely sensitive to “energy?” Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I can turn off my energy worker & psychic abilities or close the veil to the other side, but no matter how hard I try I can’t shut out the moon. Belle Luna…my beautiful moon. 🌕

Years ago, a guy I worked with would say, “When you are younger, the days are fast, but the years are long. When you are older, the days are long, and the years are short.” Kevin heard it from an older man when he was young.

The first time I heard this, I was in my 30s and had to think about it for a second. In my 50s, it rings so true it’s deafening. Scary actually.

I just said on Friday afternoon that my four years in high school felt like they went forever, but the four years since we started our business have flown by. 

In January, our son Sam left to go back to school and said he had 16 weeks straight of classes before he graduated nursing school. I was sad because I thought it would be a long time before I saw him again; we go to Delhi for his graduation and to help him move some things home in less than 3 weeks. 

The weeks are flying by. Here at VT Spätzle, we take each week, actually one day at a time. Our wholesale orders are made to order; everything that gets delivered is freshly made. 

We’ve been back to working 6 days a week, which is something that hasn’t been necessary for a long, long time. It’s great that we need to; it just takes a little re-adjusting. 

We’ve been getting up early, working in the production kitchen then trying to keep up with everything else that needs to be done. I generally take care of things in the house, Marty takes care of the outside projects. Writing is a priority for me because I love it, I am still struggling with fitting in my workouts.

Whether it’s that I am not used to working a lot again or tired in the later afternoons from my vaccinations, whatever the case, the day is so damn long! I can’t wait to go to bed! By 8:30 pm, I am literally like, “Get the fuck out of my way! I need to go to bed!”🥱

I’ve never been a person who can fall asleep early. On the other hand, Marty can eat dinner at 6 and go to bed at 6:30 and fall asleep in 7 seconds. How people like him can do that is something I’ve been asking myself for decades. 

This week I’ve been in bed before 9 pm and fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow. After struggling with sleep issues for years, this is pretty remarkable. Even Marty said this morning; it’s crazy how I have been asleep so fast and early.

Sunday’s are our only day off, and I am actually thrilled it’s going to be rainy and cool. I need to rest today and rejuvenate myself for next week. If it were sunny and warm, I know I would be starting 4 projects and not “take the day off.”

Next week, I go back to teaching belly dance Wednesday night. I am so happy to be going back after 6 months. I always have a focus for our 6-week sessions. The focus is not only for me but also for everyone to build up our stamina and endurance again. Dancing for two hours pretty much straight after not doing it for almost a year will take some time. 

Next week, I will take one day at a time as we do with the business. I won’t beat myself up if I get tired; I’ll give in and not be a stubborn asshole by resting or turning in early. “The days are long, and the weeks are short” feels like an understatement these days. 

The guy Kevin I worked with also had a saying, “Another day, another dollar. A million days, a million dollars.” When I came home one night and repeated what Kevin said, our youngest son Sam who was in the 6th grade at the time, immediately piped in with his two cents. “That’s so wrong, Mama Julz. If a person worked for only a dollar a day for 365 days a year for 70 years, they would only make $25,550.” Smartass kid, who actually says, “I’d rather be a smart ass than a dumb ass.” I wonder where he gets it from? 😂

With that, I will leave you with the hope that you enjoy your Sunday…the term for Sundays, “A day of rest,” will be my mantra without feeling guilty one bit. 

Happy Friday! It was a long week with cold, miserable weather, but I think we may be over the hump. Right now, it’s Friday at 5:36 pm, and we just sat down for the first time today. We’ve been at it since 6:30 am. 

Friday nights, we love to sit on our front porch and watch the world go by. In the summertime, on Friday nights, we watch all the campers & RVs driving by to check into Camping on the Battenkill or tourists who are staying up in Manchester. 

Sunday nights, we sit on our front porch and watch them all go home. We really love living here, in a place where people want to vacation. 

We haven’t been able to sit outside for at least two weeks since the weather decided to turn back to winter. Today I said that as long as the sun is out, I will bundle up and have happy hour on the porch. 

I made some fresh guacamole to have with chips and salsa. I made tequila & key lime seltzer water for a cocktail with a squeeze of lime juice: nothing fancy, just an old stand-by.

I am freezing my ass off, but I don’t care. If I were up here for the weekend, the chilly temperature wouldn’t bother me, although I do have to hold down my chips and guacamole from blowing away. I just watched the third, fifth-wheel camper go by; we think the campground must have opened this week. 

It’s going to be an early night with a 4:30 am wake-up call. Tomorrow is my first day “working” at the Troy Farmers Market, and we leave at 6 am. I’m excited to go, I’ve worked at it a couple of times over the last two years, and it’s fun. I know a lot of the vendors and can’t wait to see them.

I never sleep well on Friday nights for whatever reason; I know why; I am a total nervous Nelly or anal Annie the night before a market or event. I plan to get everything ready tonight, so I’m not running around like a grumpy idiot in the morning. It was one thing when I was going to my market alone on my own schedule, but I don’t want to slow everything down in the morning for Marty.

Have a great Saturday and I’ll catch up with you guys later! 😉

We’ve increased our production this week because we had wholesale orders out the ying-yang. Thursday is usually a production day, so we had to double up at the beginning of the week to be on the road today. We are very blessed that the orders keep pouring in.

Packing the van with the wholesale spatzle boxes on a freezing and snowy morning is not what you would imagine for almost the end of April, but this is the Northeast, and anything can happen. It snowed on Memorial Day one year; I shit you not!

We were up at 4:30 am, guzzled some coffee, and fed the dogs. Otto and Klausie-boy were definitely not happy about the snow and being woken up at 4:45 am. We got dressed, packed the van, and were on the road at 6:02 am. Ahead of schedule!

We hit Saratoga, delivering first to Healthy Living then directly onto Four Seasons. We jumped on the highway and were at Honest Weight in a flash, it seemed, with their weekly delivery.

We had a stop to make in downtown Albany, and I got so excited when I spotted the Big RCA dog on top of an old warehouse. I’ve seen it from the highway before, but never up close or underneath it.

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Even though I was still jacked up about seeing the big dog, we both needed to stop for more caffeine. Driving to our next stop, we saw the hard cider brewery Nine Pin and got out to say hello to our friend Bill who works as a brewmaster. Worked…he doesn’t work there anymore. Dammit! 😕

We were meeting our wholesale customer and Pennsylvania distributor, The Alpine Meat and Wurst House with their spatzle delivery. We meet their delivery driver at Shop-Rite in East Greenbush, NY. It works out for both of us since he delivers a variety of their products to Shop-Rite and it’s on our delivery route.

The Alpine House’s sausages, wursts, and our spatzle are available at some Pennsylvania-based Weis Markets, a supermarket chain. We aren’t sure exactly which Weis Markets, but quite a few of them. The Alpine House is located in Honesdale, PA, and sells our spatzle from their location as well. You can call the Alpine House for more information.

We grabbed lunch and started heading back; we were delivering to a new customer today, Unihog in Hoosick Falls, NY. They are an eclectic farm to restaurant and live music venue. They are only open on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday with a burrito or two thrown in. Thursdays, the menu is whatever the kitchen is inspired by and what is available. We are on the menu tonight with schnitzel. Yay!

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Sarah, the owner of Unihog, is a fan of our spatzle which she purchases down the street from another one of our customer Hoosick Provisions.

This is what it is all about, one small business supporting another small business!

Unihog is a place we want to go to on a Thursday night for a bite to eat and listen to live music. Last year, everything was done outside, this year things are still limited indoors, but hopefully, as summer nears some restrictions will be lifted.

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Our last stop was to The Market Wagon with their spatzle delivery. We also pick up our milk order for the business from them on Thursdays. They pick up the milk the same morning the milk is bottled and nice enough to pick up ours.

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I told Steve about my blog post a couple of days ago. I explained the whole thing to him about how the taste brought me back to Caterina’s Italian Ice. I know that he would never see my blog post since Steve, his family, and all the staff are members of the Mennonite community. Most of them will use their cell phones for calls and email, but not anything online.

I picked up a few grocery items and one of those lemonades. We couldn’t wait to get home at that point, after a long day being blown around by the wind and cold, in and out of the van so many times.

After we unloaded the van and let Otto and Klaus out, we ran into the house and put on our pajamas. 😂 We each grabbed a blanket and just sat on the couches for a bit. Of course, I had to dig out my fleece pink snowflake PJ bottoms that I stored away with the rest of my winter clothes a couple of weeks ago. This afternoon I saw on my weather app that next week’s temps would be between 70 & 80! Welcome to the Northeast!