Day 15- Grateful For Me…Yesterday

This journey with WeatherVane Creamery has been quite the roller coaster. I think anyone reading this probably is aware of at least one setback or victory that I have encountered either personally or with the business in the past year and a half.

When I first rolled into town, I had such an invincible energy. I think I heard the term “Pollyanna” more than once. And for some reason, I forged ahead and did some crazy things that got a lot of people’s attention. I had a fundraising campaign to raise $100,000 and I flew out to Seattle to talk to Howard Schultz and from the American Cheese Society, I won a full membership and scholarship to their annual conference in Raleigh, NC. I also wrote a complete business plan and did all the research. I began building a brand. I had creative, innovative ideas for WeatherVane. I met with a wide range of professionals and other individuals who were inspired by what I was doing. I was always looking forward with vim, vigor, and optimism.

And since this summer, while it may have appeared to the outside that I had been moving forward with the same momentum, I have been recuperating from a certain exhaustion. And it isn’t all WeatherVane related, to be sure. During this time I have been grateful for all the good, productive days that I had in the past that have now been carrying me. Every time someone recognizes me from a newspaper article or I come across some research that I forgot about that suddenly is completely relevant, I am grateful. Whenever I share about that trip to see Howard Schultz, I am even kind of baffled. Who was that woman who went up to the microphone at the shareholder meeting with a folder containing a non disclosure agreement and a letter?

In the last two weeks I have been feeling like some of the exhaustion is lifting. And I recognize that no matter what, I have always been a very strong person. I just have high demands on myself. I have had to learn to be compassionate to myself and to give myself some leeway on those bad days. I am grateful for that lesson, too. This ride has been very crazy and I wonder what the Sarah who was just getting ready to leave Portland would think of the Sarah now. I don’t recognize myself anymore and that’s ok. I am chalking it all up to being a wiser and more compassionate person. And I would never have gotten as far as I have without all of the stages- the good and the bad. It’s all part of a master plan that I don’t have to understand. And for all of it- including, and especially, for the Sarah I used to be- I am grateful.

Me accepting the scholarship from the American Cheese Society in Raleigh, NC