Patience is Not My Pair of Pants

This is not me. That's not my clock. Not my wine. My life does not at all look like this. She looks calm and patient. I do not.

Look, I know that "anything worth doing is worth doing well", "Rome wasn't built in a day", and all those other sayings that parents tell their kids that want to build a half-ass birdhouse. I just looked up a bunch more and I admit that I like the one from Moliere, "The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit." Go ahead and apply that to grapes since this is a wine shop's blog. But, OMG, this last push to the end is taking for.ever.

What's worse is that at the end of February I quit my job for this.

~snort~

Just calling it my "job" hardly gives the full story. On February 28th, which conveniently fell on a Friday, at 5 PM, I emailed my last invoice to my last client, logged off their system, and deleted any and all access I had to their system. After 25 years, I had finally left the world of healthcare IT.

Twenty-five years!

People, that's more than half my life.

The last 10 years of that had been as a free-range chicken, AKA a consultant. In August of 2014, I quit the corporate world that offered health insurance, FMLA, and paid trips to conferences for the better life of being self-employed. While I didn't have health insurance, I also didn't have to wear slacks and a lanyard ever again. It's not even at all hyperbole (which is rare for me) when I say that I never once regretted it. I never had a moment, even at 3 AM when the worst thoughts hunker down in my brain, that I thought I had made a terrible mistake. That said, I originally quit that big-girl job so I could be a yoga teacher.

~snort~ I'll pause for the laughter to die down.

Thankfully, Ronnie and Brad saved my butt by offering me consultant work. So that's what I did from March of 2015 to March of 2025.

Here's why I'm particularly impatient, though. I wanted to quit my job last year. As a matter of fact, I sent a text to my friend Zach back in January of 2024 (as part of his happy birthday text) that I was going to finally leave healthcare IT in April.

But then I didn't get the keys to my shop until October.

As frustrated as I was with the delay in getting into my space, I was lucky and made the best of it. Lucky because I still had work I could do for my last client. The extra time, as it turns out, has been to my benefit. Or at least I turned it into a benefit.

When I first signed the least on that space, I had only lived in Virginia for 9 months and Petersburg for 3. Now, almost a year and a half later, I've met more people, learned more about Petersburg, learned more about wine, made great connections in the wine industry, and have created scuttlebutt.

Sure, this may literally be the worst ever time to open a new wine shop that hopes to focus on mostly imported wine from Europe, but I'm nothing if not flexible and resilient. I may have been a terrible basketball player in grade school, but I know how to pivot when necessary. (From 4th grade to 8th grade, I made 8 points, but was hella good at defense.)

At the moment, I'm in the final two weeks of that 30 day period when ABC allows people to object to my request for a wine and beer license. This is probably the last two weeks of having nothing really much I can do for a while, so you'd think I'd be enjoying it. But, like I told Clint yesterday, it's like standing on the beach watching the tsunami coming.

It's not like I'm not doing anything, though. Sure, I'm writing every day, running, and cramming as much wine knowledge into my skull as I can, but also I'm planning and getting excited for the stuff I actually know how to do. Educate.

The first thing I'm super excited about are the Wines of the Week. These will be the wines that are sold by the glass. What's exciting about these, at least for me, is that we'll have 5-7 wines that we focus on each week (or maybe for two weeks, we'll see). My staff and I will taste them all. Part of that group tasting will be to gather descriptions so we can describe it to you. I'll make a weekly video for the website and socials that showcase these wines so you can get exited about them. too. Also, I'll pick one of the wines and go deeper into it in a blog post. We're going to learn about the farmers, geography, terroir, families, wine making process, and more - together.

I'll have a newsletter once there's news to tell. It'll have lists of upcoming classes and workshops, wine news, stories about the wines, and more.

The maddening part, though, is that I can't get started on anything because I can't yet even buy the wine.

Have I told you the worstest part?

Right as I'm getting my ABC licence, business license, accounts with distributors, and my point of sale system, I'm headed to Japan for 9 days. You see, Star Wars Celebration is in Tokyo this year and I bought my ticket for it last year.

Once I get back, there's a two week window of who-knows-what, and then I fly to Missoula, Montana for another 9 days for a college graduation.

Folks, life happens. Also, you learn what your priorities are. Star Wars and family. (Also, great sushi and getting to run in the mountains again.)

People keep asking me when we're going to open. All I can say now is, "Soon." End of April? Early May? Late May?

When I go into the shop to do a wine tasting with a distributor or to check on how the Roomba is learning the floorplan, I have to say that I am loving the energy in there. It feels good. When I turn on my French Cafe Spotify list, it's damned near perfect.

The only thing that will make it perfecter is when there are bottles of wine on the shelves and you get to finally come in and have a glass.

Until then, keep your pants on.