If you're reading this, it's because you received a rather tardy invoice from me for an order that you placed earlier in 2022. I am so sorry for my delay and any inconvenience that causes for you.

The long winded explanation of why it has taken me this long to get your invoice to you is the following:

2022 started out with a lot of hope and optimism for new systems that were supposed to make things faster and simpler.

We transitioned to our new online bookkeeping software which was supposed to work seamlessly with the online store, which it doesn't. It requires a manual download of all of the orders and then a manual upload of them, but there are glitches in the mapping so that often we end up having to do a bunch of work to fix each invoice before it gets sent.

Our staff person, who I'd hired back in 2020 for the 2022 season and had worked with for weeks here and there over the 2021 season, arrived in early March. YAY. I knew she was incredible and working together for the 2022 season was going to be great. She arrived knowing that she needed to have a minor surgery (though she wasn't sure when) and I figured we could work around it and whatever her recovery needed to look like. Her surgery got scheduled shortly after her arrival. So we adapted. But 6 weeks later she decided that for personal reasons she needed to leave. Completely understandable, but that left me with a gaping hole in the planned workforce for the season. And, I don't know if any of you have been trying to hire folks this year, but where we live, it's been a real challenge. The unemployment rate is under 2%. So I ended up not finding another staff person til August.

Tony and Fran, after a couple years of not getting to do the travel plans they'd hoped for, had big plans for this summer to be away for 11 weeks split between 5 weeks in May and June and 6 weeks July and August. So, they were gone for the majority of the season and are working on being retired, so I didn't want to make big asks of them.

The saving grace of all of this was that our 2 little kiddos had full time daycare from May 2-September 2nd, which is the only thing that kept the wheels on at all.

I found out I was pregnant in June and then miscarried in July. Which explained some of the exhaustion, hormones and emotional challenges I was having.

In early August I found out a friend was on a temporary leave from his work, and he has been working with me every day since. It's been magical. It helped take off some of the isolation and stress that I had been feeling working by myself all season.

When Fran came back she worked really hard to help me start catching up and fixing the errors in the books, which brings us to now. I am finally able to send out these invoices. I am so sorry for the delay. Hopefully some of the fixes we are working through are permanent and will make things smoother and faster for the future. We are also working on plans for next season to ensure that no matter what wrench gets thrown into the plans, that invoices come out at the same time as delivery.

Thank you for your patience and flexibility in all this. Thank you for your support. I know that December is not an ideal time to be receiving outstanding invoices. And for that I am very sorry. If due to the timing we need to work out a plan for payment, I completely understand and will work with you to make sure that it works for you and your household.

Wishing you a wonderful December.

With so much gratitude,

Katrina