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​people + places   |   eats + things

>> meatetarian eats: Cookies in the Time of COVID-19

4/15/2020

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This year for my very strange sheltering-in-place birthday celebration, I treated myself to a very real treat: locally made jigsaw puzzles and locally baked cookies! You can treat yourself to the same option if you live in Athens, by the way, through the collaboration between Very Good Puzzle and the subject of this week’s #MeatetarianEats post, Sun Cat Sweets!

Though I did purposely order a puzzle and cookie delivery combo, what I did not expect was how amazing these companies are! I made mention on the socials that this was my birthday treat to myself, and they sent me a birthday card, a second puzzle AND a knitting bag! OK, maybe they didn’t know I am weird and love using tote bags as knitting project bags, but still. I got a little emotional about the whole thing and it was the greatest surprise!
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But y’all aren’t here for the emotional gushing over puzzles, right? You’re here because this is a post about cookies. 

I honestly have no recollection of how I found out about Sun Cat Sweets other than one day randomly discovering them on Instagram. It’s a home bakery here in Athens. And fun fact, they will ship you a box of cookies if you live in Georgia or, if you ask nicely, the Eastern coast. I highly recommend this.
My dozen variety box came with two each of the six recipes available as of March 19, and I’m just gonna go down the list for you.

At the top of the stack is — if this sounds up your alley — a cookie you might want to request ASAP, because I just found out it might be discontinued for a bit! The Hazelnut Swirls have a really fabulous chewy quality and distinct nuttiness. The hazelnuts themselves are finely chopped and offer almost a vegetal quality and aroma. They’re enveloped in this caramel-colored syrup filling that reminds me of a simple syrup. It’s very fragrant, and the sweetness kind of melts away to reveal the nutty essence. I love how this cookie holds together.  I’ve had swirl cookies before where if you take a bite, the whole thing starts to crumble and you have to choose between the very
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the dozen box came with two each of these sun cat sweets cookies.

​ ladylike move of “shove it all in your face at once” or dropping it on the ground. That is not the case with these! They hold their structure well.

Next up is Cinnamon Lime Shortbread. My uncle Marsh makes what are actually the best margaritas ever, and I think it’s because of the number of limes and type of agave he uses. Fam, these are his margaritas in cookie form. The icing is SO WONDERFULLY TART and has lime zest to add citrus character. It’s a really thin layer of icing, but manages to gently permeate the whole of the shortbread cookie. The cinnamon in the name really comes through, along with what I detect as a nutmeg-y flavor and the cookie — PRAISE THE BAKING GODS — is not dry. I loathe dry shortbreads. Like I think it’s kind of the point to have a dry shortbread, but no thank you; this was much more my style.

The Coriander Snickerdoodle melted in my mouth. This to me was the most simple of flavors, but I don’t want to say that in a way that understates how addictive it is. I cannot say I have much, if any, experience with coriander, but I can say that I have lots of experience with snickerdoodles. These had the cinnamon sugar character, but like the rest of Sun Cat Sweets’ offerings, an herby and earthy quality that elevated it above what’s found in most bakeries. I really enjoyed the various textures of sugars on top, with the larger Turbinado crystals providing a satisfying crunch.

If I had to have a … not favorite? of the bunch? … it was probably the Fennel Linzers. Full disclosure, I don’t really like fennel. I blame it on one of my mom’s recipes that did not go over so well in my childhood. The cookie itself has kind of a shortbread-y consistency (drier than that of the Cinnamon Lime Shortbread) and the grape jelly layer is really thin. I think I may have liked these more if they had more filling-to-cookie ratio, but that’s just me. I definitely got the licorice-like notes from the fennel. They’re barely perceptible, but the fennel itself gives a touch of texture amidst the jelly.

To me, the Mexican Hot Chocolate was the crumbliest cookie in the box, but it managed to have the richest flavor. Like, one cookie is plenty! This had more of a bitter/cocoa taste than a milk chocolate, and I adore the addition of those weensy little marshmallows on top.

And lastly. I didn’t mean to save the best for last, because I stacked them in that photo before I’d even taken a bite, but I accidentally saved the best for last.

This, my friends, is the Rye Old Fashioned, and it was the one I was most excited to try.

The rye flour cookie is light and flexible with almost a cinnamon note. But the shining stars are the dried fruits. That citrus burst! The bright bite of tart cherry! It was candied without being grossly sweet and really just made me feel joy. If it were possible to have all the delicious bits of a fruitcake in cookie form (without nuts or anything colored neon green), that’s what this most reminded me of.
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Next time, in true Dallas form, I’m getting a box of just these and a bottle of bourbon.
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>> meatetarian eats: Comfort Food

3/30/2020

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I’ve been procrastinating writing this for a full week now. It’s been A Long Week. A long two weeks, really. Two Thursdays ago I was helping set up a catering event for one of my restaurant partners and the event hosts brought in extra hand sanitizer to have in the banquet room. The next day all Hell broke loose and that’s about the time I started losing track of days.

Last Thursday was my birthday, and it was the strangest birthday I’ve ever … celebrated. I was panicking about my friends who were un- or under-employed now because of COVID-19. I was worried for the newest restaurant I do a bit of work with — they chose to close their doors due to the uncertainty. I was worried for my hair salon that I do occasional photography and graphics for, as they, too, shut down for the safety of their team and customers. I was worried, a little bit, for me too: What happens if my main restaurant accounts close?

So my 31st birthday was one I’d rather pretend not happened at all. And in times of stress, I tend to stress-eat. Not over-eat, per se, but when I’m stressed I specifically want comfort food. That’s something different to every person, but to me … it’s barbeque and French fries. Y’all knowI can eat some barbeque. And there’s only one place in Athens that has my comfort-style of sauce-drenched pulled pork on a fluffy white bread bun that’s served up with a side of hot, salty crinkly fries.

I’m talkin’ Butt Hutt, fam.

My history with Butt Hutt takes us back almost a decade, when this little BBQ shack opened up across the street from The Red & Black, where I basically lived my junior and senior years of college. When I wasn’t at a sorority event, I was there. In my cubicle. Usually writing or doing homework, or often bugging my co-workers and shaking the vending machine in the hopes it was lying about all the Mr. Pibb being gone … again.

We ate at Butt Hutt a lot. Jimmy John’s, my other now-comfort craving, was right next door. Those were the places we frequented, but Butt Hutt was locally owned and had an even bigger special place in my heart. I remember illegally running across Baxter Street with a paper bag of pulled pork in one hand and a giant Styrofoam cup of sweet tea in the other. I’ll never forget when Daniel, Carey (my editors at the time) and I went together and learned they changed their fries, which was a travesty they later fixed.

When I moved to Macon and later Atlanta and Sandy Springs, Butt Hutt was a constant food source I missed. Maybe it was so many memories made there; maybe it was the ‘que. But “the Hutt” was my Athens comfort food. 
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the buttwich plate, with vinegar sauce and crinkly fries. side of mac 'n' cheese added.
In the years since I left UGA, Butt Hutt moved across town to Macon Highway and now offers seating and even a full bar. Or, well, it does when we’re not in a global pandemic health crisis. But since we are in said crisis, many of our local restaurants have closed up shop or reverted to curbside pick-up and/or delivery options. It made my birthday to find out that Butt Hutt was able to be delivered, TO MY DOOR, without worry of getting “contaiged,” as I like to say. Plus I would be supporting both the local business and the local delivery service, Bulldawg Food, by choosing to spend a few bucks there.
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I could delve into the food writing stuff here — tell y’all all about how that punch of vinegar sauce is the best thing to put on smoked, pulled pork, especially if it’s from the bottom of the sauce bottle so it has all the tasty spicy peppery seasonings in there — but this is a different post for #MeatetarianEats. 
These are strange, scary times. I don’t want to induce a panic and make folks think they need more toilet paper, but it’s a fact. Every single one of us faces uncertainty in some way or another, and if you already battle any sort of anxiety or mental sh*t it’s even worse. Add to that owning your own business and having not only your livelihood, but the lives and financial circumstances of your employees in your hands … hot damn, y’all. 

So it’s up to us. Those of us able to have an income still, we are the ones on whom it falls to do everything we can to lift up our small businesses. I encourage you to donate to fundraisers, community funds and nonprofits if you are able. Shop your favorite boutiques online. Purchase a gift certificate that you can redeem for your next hair appointment or brow wax. Find out which of your favorite places offer delivery or to-go services.
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Whatever you can do, do it local. Support these small businesses and restaurants now, because Lord knows I’m going to need some fun places to go eat at and write about when all this is said and done.
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a new brewery 'teas' up in athens

8/6/2019

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Kombucha, a probiotic fermented tea, has a distinctively tart taste. It contains a negligible amount of alcohol, and can be enjoyed alone or in cocktails and mocktails. The beverage isn’t new, but it’s only beginning to gain traction in the Classic City thanks to Erika Galloway and Jason Dean, co-founders of Figment.

“Budweiser is not like a pastry stout, and there’s that much variety in kombucha, too. Some are really crazy vinegary, some are super-carbonated, some are light, some are heavily flavored,” Dean said. 
​
Figment kombucha is available by the glass or in growlers, which are a glass jug-style vessel. Unlike beer in growlers, live-cultured kombucha will continue to naturally carbonate inside the container, allowing it to stay crisp and drinkable longer.
The brewery’s core flavors are ginger, lemongrass and turmeric; rosé; and blueberry-lavender. Seasonal flavors this year included mango-chile-lime and jasmine mojito, and upcoming flavors for fall and winter will play with apples, spruce tips, cinnamon and barrel aging. It was the blueberry-lavender that first came together and gave Dean the vision for what his bottle shop kombucha program could grow into.

Dean and Galloway met working at a local bottle and homebrew shop. A manager there had been making kombucha, and Dean was approached about taking over the project.

“We saw the clientele in the business kind of grow and we thought, you know what, there’s no kombucha brewery in Athens. It’s ridiculous and we should have one,” he said. 

Eventually the partnership broke away from the bottle shop and became its own entity, named 
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Figment co-founder Erika Galloway pours a cup of mango-chile-lime kombucha at the Baxter Street taproom.
after the beer brewery Dean originally planned to start.
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“It costs a lot less to get into kombucha. There’s a lot less barrier in entry into market. There’s a lot of potential there, so I thought it’d be better to go that direction than spend $2 million on a brewery that may or may not make it,” he said. “I just liked the fact that [Figment] is a name that’s kind of strange and doesn’t mean a whole lot to anyone specifically, and it’s kind of an ethereal word that anyone could bring their own meaning to.”
>> from figment of imagination to reality

Kombucha is fermented by a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast — also known as a SCOBY. SCOBYs tend to look like flat discs or mushrooms that take hold at the top of a container as the bacteria and yeast huddle together and create a physical form. The SCOBY, along with additional “starter liquid” that contains the bacteria and yeast, is added to water, sugar and tea to get the process going. When Galloway first became interested in kombucha, she read online that it was possible to purchase a container of GT’s plain kombucha, and as long as it had a small piece of SCOBY in the bottom, it could be cultivated into a larger colony. 
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SCOBYs, or symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast, and starter liquid are what ferment tea into Figment kombucha. Here, SCOBYs sit and wait to be utilized in the fermenting process.
Galloway and Dean have produced starter liquid so strong that they no longer add the physical SCOBY to their brews. 

It takes anywhere from 10 to 30 days to finish a batch of kombucha, depending on the amount being produced. After a period of primary fermentation, where the unflavored tea reaches the appropriate sourness and yeast turns the sugar to alcohol, the SCOBY and starter are removed, and what’s left is flavored and undergoes a secondary fermentation process. During secondary fermentation, kombucha naturally carbonates itself as the bacteria digest the alcohol. Figment’s owners also chose to add additional carbonation at the end to ensure product consistency. All in all, brewing kombucha isn’t much different from brewing beer.

“It’s still the same principle and it’s based off of that because both [Dean] and I were into beer,” she said. “All the equipment that you use is the same as if you were brewing beer. We have to use a hot water pot, which is the hot liquor tank for boiling water. We steep, which is the same thing as using your mash tun with your grains. Then we add the additional sugar once you take the tea out and we cool it down, so you’re still chilling it like you would with beer, and then we go into fermentation.”
​
Figment’s owners prefer to use a blend of black and green teas for their kombucha. Galloway said white tea also works well, but the main thing is to ensure the tea is caffeinated: “Your bacteria need the caffeine for an energy source.”
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Enjoying a spicy version of mango-chile-lime kombucha at the taproom.
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A glimpse inside the Baxter Street taproom where Figment is brewed and served.
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Co-founder Erika Galloway holds a handful of tea — the heart of kombucha, if you will.
>> farm-fresh focus

Dean said Figment’s focus is on taking advantage of the seasons and fresh, local ingredients as often as possible.

“It’s going to be a little more time-intensive and expensive to use seasonal, local ingredients, but I think it’s better for the economy. It’s better for the farmers,” Dean said. “It’s going to taste better; it’s going to be more interesting. There’s a story behind it.”
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Farmers markets play an integral role in Figment’s business model. Not only are they a way to source raw materials, but the exposure there has been unparalleled. 
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Co-founder Jason Dean serves up a cup of kombucha at the Saturday morning Athens Farmers Market at Bishop Park.
“The market’s been awesome,” Dean said. “It’s a great way to be able to sell without having to pay a distributor, pay a retailer. It’s all just whatever you bring yourself, you make yourself, you get all the money and get it in front of everyone who shows up there, which is a lot of people.”

He said originally the Athens Farmers Market was supposed to serve as supplemental income and be an exposure point, but the two quickly realized it was a vital part of their business plan. 

“It’s kind of a thing we can count on to make rent every month,” Dean said. “There’s still a lot of people who’ve never even heard of [kombucha], surprisingly. I think we’re getting there and part of our job is just, at these markets, is to educate people and let them taste it."
He wants to look at kombucha brewing more from a restaurant focus.

“I’m very influenced by kind of culinary things,” Dean said. “I like to think of brewing, even beer brewing, as it cooking. You’re thinking of ingredients and how those ingredients go together and not necessarily like, what’s going to sell or what are kind of popular flavors that everybody else is doing. I want to think of different things you don’t see on the shelf.”

The two found out the hard way that there are some flavors harder to capture than others. Ambrosia — coconut, pineapple and cherry — didn’t turn out so well, and neither did root beer.

“We thought we’d make a full-on natural one using the roots and trying to duplicate the flavor of root beer, but it just tasted like roots,” Dean said.
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Galloway agreed, saying it was one of those things you might taste and ask if there are supposed to be health benefits from.
There are some purported probiotic benefits from kombucha, but it doesn’t have to taste funky for that to be the case. Probiotics are “live microorganisms that are intended to have health benefits,” per the National Institutes of Health. Yogurt, supplements and fermented foods — like kombucha! — are ways to add probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium bacteria and Saccharomyces boulardii yeast to the diet. According to an August 2018 piece from Harvard Medical School, clinical studies suggest that “probiotic therapy” can aid in gastrointestinal issues, 
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Kombucha batches "cook" in the back area of Figment's taproom.
allergies and treating vaginal and urinary tract infections.

However, NIH cautions, “benefits have not been conclusively demonstrated, and not all probiotics have the same effects.”

“There’s a lot of argument as to what exactly is probiotic and what these things are really doing inside your body and how they really work,” Dean said. “It’s just now, surprisingly, starting to be studied. This thing that has been done for thousands of years is still not fully scientifically understood, like, what does happen to kombucha in the actual gut and what’s specifically going on here? Right now we’re just still kind of going on anecdotal evidence that people feel better.”

The NIH piece goes on to say that “strong scientific evidence” to support probiotic use for most health conditions is lacking, and the US Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any probiotics for preventing or treating health problems.
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Cocktails made with blueberry-lavender kombucha, photographed at The Old Pal in Athens, Georgia.
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A cocktail made with ginger-lemongrass-turmeric kombucha, photographed at Trappeze Pub in Athens, Georgia.
​>> brewing the kombucha culture

Figment’s owners hope to see their reach — and perhaps health benefits — expand to bottles or cans by the end of this fiscal year.

Both said the most challenging part of their brewery is that they are its only two employees: they brainstorm and brew; they clean; they work the two market days each week, plus other area events; they run the taproom on Baxter Street. And that’s not even going into the bookkeeping, paperwork and other day-to-day business tasks.

They’re up to the task, and though lacking in sleep at the moment, are excited for the opportunities they have coming up. Figment was given a coveted spot at music, arts and rustic lifestyle weekend Wildwood Revival this September.

“Oh, it’s huge,” Galloway said of being part of Wildwood. “It’s our demographic of customers that actually go there because they’re interested in those small, handcrafted artisan products.”
​
Recently Figment partnered with Georgia-based beverage distributor Modern Hops, meaning even more Peach State foodies will have access to the drink this year.
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“My goal, anyway, is to market the best kombucha in the world. It seems crazy in a place that’s on Baxter Street in a little plaza building, but we’ll get there,” Dean said. “Whether we grow into the big brewery or not remains to be seen, but I think that follows just being the best product rather than growing and putting something out that I’m not necessarily proud of. The growth will happen naturally if the product is sought after and good.”

<< drink up >> 
Figment kombucha is available for purchase by the glass or in growlers at its Baxter Street taproom, at the Saturday morning Athens Farmers Market and the Wednesday afternoon farmers market at Creature Comforts. It is also available in select breweries and restaurants in the Athens, Greensboro and metro Atlanta areas.
Follow the brewery on Facebook + Instagram.
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Disclosure:​ The cocktail photos in this piece were part of a separate, paid project. This story and other images were of my own volition.
Georgia’s full of locally owned businesses. Which one should be featured next?
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an accidental lesson in selfishness

7/8/2019

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The first thing I saw on Instagram this morning was an on-point quote from fellow University of Georgia graduate Olori Swank, now a celebrity fashion stylist and entrepreneur: “Achieving your goals is a slow process; but quitting won’t speed it up.”

Yes. Let’s talk about that.

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time these past seven months, you may remember that in January, my skincare + cosmetics company announced an opportunity for consultants and directors to earn an all-expenses paid trip to Miami and Bahamas cruise. You may also recall that I really wanted to earn it. But on June 30, the last day to finish qualifications and get myself on the boat … I fell short.

And I fell short because I learned a really, really powerful lesson the hard way.
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one of my progress markers for the cruise. as you can see, i made much more headway on sales than sharing by early may!
​To earn the cruise, we had to do a combination of reaching a sales goal, welcoming new consultants and building consultants into leaders. I reached the sales goal about a month before the qualification deadline, but I resisted and hesitated on sharing my company’s opportunity. I didn’t want to be pushy. I didn’t want anyone to think I was begging them. I didn’t want to be “that girl” who people defriend and block because I asked them to get together for a facial, a makeover or watch a video about my company. 

Long story short, I didn’t earn the cruise because I didn’t do the necessary work to share about my company. 

Let’s dig a little deeper into that. Into my fear and hesitance. Into me knowing that the only 
way I would ever achieve the goals I set was by doing the very thing I was refusing to do. I didn’t quit, exactly, but I definitely closed myself off to this side of the business. That was … selfish.

“Selfish? How is it selfish?” you may ask.

It’s selfish because of what I am able to do and accomplish with this as my full-time job. Yes, I knit and photograph and do some freelance storytelling work. But I have the flexibility to do those things because of what I have in my company. Most people who have full-time or side-jobs within the realm of direct sales (which is what my company is) or network marketing are the same way. They are able to have lives outside of the cubicles they are/were once chained to 40-plus hours a week because they took a chance on something crazy that they probably rolled their eyes about (like me!) and actually worked that opportunity until it paid them back tenfold. 

It’s selfish because when I quit/was fired from (still not sure) the job I had at a brewery, I was able to quickly cover my bills and rent by getting over myself and holding appointments. Again, there are actually quite a large number of people in companies with similar structures to mine that are doing this daily because they are working.

It’s selfish because I became so singularly focused on not being pushy, but needing to have the finances to pay my bills, that I chose to only make money instead of share the wealth.

At the end of the six-month qualification period to earn this cruise, I sold more than $10,000 retail value in skincare and makeup. Bills paid; rent paid; even able to stick some in savings and that kinda thing. Let me tell ya, that’s a load off my back and my mind! My customers who use our skincare look and feel fabulous and don’t have to wear makeup. My customers who use our makeup love their colors and are digging our new foundation especially. Oh, and lipstick. Always lipstick. 

But imagine if I’d taken the time to focus on sharing more about my company with those customers.

My customers who are on payment plans with me for their skincare … could have started their own business and gotten their skincare at a steep, 50 percent discount, not to mention they could have begun building a customer base of their own and started making profits. Those profits could go toward things like rent and bills, or a vacation for their family. One of my customers — who has the dang cutest house in Lexington! — dreams of owning a bakery one day. Even as a hobby consultant, I could have helped her strategize and make that happen. Another customer, who runs a daycare center in Athens, expressed to me once that she’d love to own a campground. 
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my director ashley and i at career conference in duluth, georgia, in march. we'd just crossed the stage for being on-target to earn the cruise.
Imagine if I’d shared with them! Where they could be now on achieving those dreams!

I have so many customers, so many friends, so many family members, with talents and passions that have **absolutely nothing to do with** my company, who feel dissatisfied somehow with the job they’re in. For most, leaving to go invest in an entrepreneurial avenue like I am in is a terrifying step they’re not ready for … but if I could show them — heck, if I could show you! — how even one hour a week can be maximized to earn supplemental income; income to use for a bakery or trip to Disney or a campground or that sudden hospital bill or bumping down debt; wouldn’t that be a crazy thing for me to keep to myself?!
It is crazy. 

But I did. I have. Team-building has been my biggest desire and biggest self-imposed struggle because I was too selfish to share. Too selfish to recognize potential in people and then tell them, “Hey Lisa, did you see my post last night about how my business covered my rent last month, and I did that by holding x-number of appointments in x-number of hours? I would love to help you and your husband buy that rental property on the lake by showing you how to do what I do.”

Maybe it’s not makeup or skincare you’re jazzed about, in which case my company may not be right for you. Perhaps it’s health and wellness; or fashion; or jewelry; or cleaning supplies. The Direct Sellers Association has a plethora of members and you can pull up any of their compensation plans and business models to find out more. It’s not for everyone, but I feel like a shabby friend and consultant for hiding my opportunity for so long.

In full transparency, the time is nigh for me to enter what we call “director in qualification,” or DIQ (pronounced dee-eye-queue, not like Dick Cheney) on Aug. 1. Selfishness in sharing stops here. I’m looking for at least five future consultants to work with me, whether it’s for that deep discount on their own skincare and makeup or for something bigger. I let the cruise sail on by because I ignored the process.

I’m not letting anything else do that again.
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scattered, smothered and covered

6/25/2019

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Sounds like how any good Southerner would order her hashbrowns at WaHo, doesn’t it? Well sheesh, now I’m hungry and it’s not even a #MeatetarianEats post!

Tonight I’m not writing about food. Instead, what I mean by scattered, smothered and covered is — and y’all get ready, because I don’t think I saw this one coming either — spiritually scattered, smothered and covered by the grace of a higher power. Now before y’all go and scatter yourselves because I’m writing a little church-y today, let me assure you I’m not going to try to convert you to anything. OK? OK.

I did recently start attending Cornerstone Church in Athens, Georgia, and though my reasons for doing so are mine alone, I will share that it’s been a really good experience thus far. I am a firm believer that an individual’s relationship with the higher power they believe in, if they believe in a higher power, doesn’t necessarily need to take place within the confines of a specific building with a steeple. That being said, it is nice to be in that environment once or twice a week.

I relate that back to my skincare + cosmetics business, and perhaps that’s why I needed it. In my company, we have two large business events and smaller weekly or bi-weekly local business meetings. Your success as a beauty consultant doesn’t require you to attend any of those, but when everyone is sobusy and there are so many distractions, it’s easy to re-enter life after the big events and forget everything you were so driven to do. Those more regular, smaller meetings to me are just as important as the big ones, because they remind me what I am working for. They keep me in the zone, so to speak. 

Right now my unit doesn’t have weekly meetings, and it is very easy to allow myself to get off-track. When I get off-track, I get moody and anxious and stressed and snappy. Combined with a season of life in which I am responsible for every penny I earn, it’s even more stressful when I am off-track! I feel this is why I was led to seeking an environment where I am reminded of what my purpose is.

This Sunday the lead pastor at Cornerstone discussed the Biblical book of Hosea, who was a minor prophet. At the time Hosea reportedly lived, the region known as Israel was in a bit of disrepair: people were worshipping idols, leading lives that were pretty shady, and God reached out to Hosea and told him that Hosea will now lead a life metaphoric of that of the process he’s about to undertake with Israel to wake them up. You’ll have to read the book and draw your own conclusions, but here’s what was spoken to me through the service and the subsequent reading in my own time afterward. 

Step 1: Scatter.
Yep. You see where this is going already, doncha! 

Before there’s any kind of spiritual awakening … I needed a reason to have a spiritual awakening. My life had to go all sorts of kerfluffle. Looking back, there’s been quite a few times of “scatter” since I began to realize what I ultimately desire and am ultimately appointed to do. There were breakups of relationships. There were difficulties in job settings. There were opportunities for me to seek better, higher, more! But I managed to um, usually not do any of those things. I would start to do them, then be tempted or distracted away.

Step 2: Smother.
So your life’s a shambles. You are THE definition of hot mess express and someone can just go ahead and order tickets to your sh*tshow, right? I definitely feel that way a lot, especially recently. One step forward, two steps back. I had (thankfully I can now use the past tense here!) a number of days where I was smothered in those feelings of anxiety and stress and lack that I mentioned before, because I was so scattered and all over the place. And so far from what I know I am supposed to be doing! 

Step 3: Cover.
This step is interactive. It requires you to pull your weight. Pastor Scott, talking on Sunday, mentioned that God’s love is forever if you choose to seek it. We do have free choice, but DANG if those first couple steps aren’t encouraging me to change my course!

If you’re cool hanging out in step two, feeling a little woeful and sorry for yourself and victimhood-y, hoping someone or something will come into your path and lift you out of your misery, that is your choice. Or say, maybe you’re not feeling like a victim, but perhaps you work your tail to the bone and are fiercely independent and think you can do it all by yourself, so you shut everything else out and become so caught up in busyness you forget why you’re busy in the first place … and then get overwhelmed and start questioning what the heck is happening. (Hi, hello, it’s me.)

But if you decide to sit down and have a little meeting with yourself about all those feelings and stress, and if you do believe in a higher power, there’s a chance you’ll be inclined to do what I did, which is finally accept that ol’ saying “I’m doing this FOR myself, but not BY myself.” When you do that, God does a little happy dance and suddenly he’s hanging out as your new partner. Covering you in love, in acceptance, in guidance. Like a therapist, but always there and it doesn’t matter whether or not your insurance covers it. Which is great, because mine does not!

******
Y’all. It took me a LOOONG time to get here, and “here” is not the end point. I’ve got a lot more ground to cover. My smother phase lasted entirely too long because I rejected and resisted the concept that I needed a God-filled environment like Cornerstone. But the more weighty all the negativity got, and the more I seemed to dig myself deeper into a mental hole, the more I realized what I needed was a BIG change. A shock to my system. 

I’m as shocked as anyone that I decided to peep into a church setting. I’m grateful I listened to those little guiding whispers though, telling me to stop being stubborn and do what is right for my mental health, spiritual health and business health. Are you also feeling scattered or smothered? Overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and depressed? Then perhaps it’s time you explored options to shock your system, too.
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of showers and sudoku

4/1/2019

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As a child, I assumed this had some obscure reference to the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. Like, these people escaped religious persecution, got on a boat called the Mayflower and in the month of April they weathered a lot of storms to land in North America. Not quite. I then figured the adage prophesized the month of April as the rainiest of the year, and thus all the flowers would bloom in May. This is probably closer to the actual origin of the saying.

Now at the ripe ol’ age of 30, I find “April showers bring May flowers” to have a different meaning. 

I was able to spend some time recently centering myself, which I am sure sounds hippie-dippie-trippy, but I’m being serious. March was, for whatever reason, not my best month in a lot of ways, particularly when it came to achieving some pretty lofty {but hear me, completely doable} goals in my skincare + cosmetics business. I had quite a few wins and high moments, but when March 31 rolled over to April 1 at midnight, I realized what Cinderella must have felt like as her glitter carriage morphed back into a pumpkin. On the plus side, I still had both shoes on my feet.

I digress.
One of the things I started doing to break my super-fun stress level is focus on something that isn’t related to working in any sense of the word. For a while I tried reading, but I discovered I was easily able to use reading as a distraction rather than a refocusing tool {“Just one more chapter, self! Then I promise I’ll go do XYZ. … Oh no, now it’s too late at night; guess I will have to wait until tomorrow.”} It’s sudoku, of all things. 

​​Unfamiliar with sudoku?
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{thanks google for this image}
Let me explain. You’ll typically be able to find a weekly or daily sudoku puzzle in your local newspaper. There are nine big squares of nine little squares each, and the goal is for each of your nine big squares, each row and each column to contain the numbers one through nine once each. For most of my life I never bothered to try because I told myself the story that “I am bad with numbers.” Granted, math is not my strong suit, especially in the realm of a classroom, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. I also, fun fact, spent about 15 years calling it “soduku,” pronounced like Count Dooku. So I extra was telling myself a story here.

Tonight as I did my “focus practice” as I’ve been calling it, I pulled out a recent puzzle from the local Athens independent newspaper, Flagpole. My method is to examine each square in detail and see, based on the numbers that are already put there, which numbers could be in that square. I do this for every open square. Then I go back through: Is there any square that could onlybe one number? Over and over again, then crossing out possibilities in other squares. 
​
I’m sure someone out there has a different way to do sudoku, but this is my way and I’m cool with it, so calm yourselves. 
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I fill one square in — yes! A win! Then spend a few minutes going back over the entire puzzle, looking for the next one. Crossing out the ones that won’t work. Back and forth, up and down, over and over until suddenly, YAAAS! All the pieces start coming together. One number goes in that clears four squares that clear six more and it keeps going and going until the puzzle is completed.  Such a feeling of accomplishment!

Isn’t it interesting how momentum builds, and then all of a sudden everything just comes together?

I could have easily put the puzzle away when it was frustrating. And trust me, when I have gone over rows and columns and squares and can’t seem to find either my error or the next clue, I want to ball the dang paper up and hurl it across the bathroom and open up a book. But because I focused, because I didn’t even let my very cute cats distract me, because I did the work to set the things up and I didn’t stop following up on my work until the thing was done, the thing got done. 

Y’all, I spent two straight days in March at a conference for my company and heard about a dozen entrepreneurs talk about building momentum, and it took a dang sudoku puzzle and a silly old wives tale to hit my mindshift. The teacher appears when the student is ready, amirite?

Last May through this March I was planting seeds. I wasn’t particularly focused about it all the time {hello, last August, October and this January and kind of March}, but I still trudged forward. And now that I’m aware of what a truly focused mindset looks like, I’m going to make it rain all over those seeds in April. That’s called momentum. 

And those showers? They’re going to bring May flowers.
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serving cheer ... with a side of coffee

2/12/2019

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joyristas megan mccutcheon and nathan nelms inside the java joy coffee truck.
Considering how prolific the coffee chain Starbucks is, it’s a fair assumption most Americans are familiar with the term “barista.” The term “joyrista,” however, might be a new one.

Joyristas serve much more than cups of coffee. They serve businesses, the Athens community and everyone they encounter with welcome arms, big hugs and — as the job title might imply — a whole latte joy.

“The first thing, I got hired, they needed help, so I wanted to help,” said Megan McCutcheon, who was one of the first four Joyristas to join Java Joy after it was founded in 2016. The nonprofit is a program of Watkinsville, Georgia-based Extra Special People, which provides special needs-centered activities and programming for children and adults of all abilities, as well as their families.
Nathan Nelms came on board in 2017 after Jake Sapp, coordinator of program operations for ESP, contacted his parents about Nelms working with Java Joy.

“We did like a practice,” Nelms said. “We would like, fill the coffee filter thing an then we’ll have to pour the coffee powder stuff and then we’ll have to shake it a little bit and put it in the thing, and we’ll have to turn the coffee thing on and wait ‘til it says ‘ready to go.’”
​
Going on two years later, Nelms and McCutcheon are experts at running the coffee maker and the coffee cart.
>> beverages for businesses
 
Laura Graben, Java Joy’s development coordinator, initially started at ESP as a volunteer and as demand for the coffee cart grew, so did its staff.

“It was an opportunity for our adults here at ESP in particular, but also an opportunity in our community to become more engaged,” Graben said. “Now we have three Americorps members, we have Jake who is the top manager of Java Joy, me as the development coordinator and we have 14 joyristas now. … It’s just basically really blossomed here in Athens. I think people really enjoy their coffee and their experience with us and it’s a different take on their morning cup.”

​When a company or event books with Java Joy, the 
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the java joy trailer and van outside an event at voya in atlanta, georgia. | courtesy photo
joyristas bring their coffee cart or coffee trailer to the business and serve complimentary cups of Jittery Joe’s, and plenty of complimentary hugs. Though many Athens-area businesses have hired Java Joy since 2016, the word is spreading.

“The coolest place is the downtown in Atlanta,” McCutcheon said of a recent event at Colony Square in Midtown. “We helped to do 500 muffins.”

Joyristas made about $100 each in tips that day, and celebrated a job well-done with lunch at Cracker Barrel.

“It’s better than [previous jobs] because you get to go out in the community and serve coffee and hang out with your friends,” Nelms said.

Graben said most of the time, the cart is wheeled into a business’ lobby, lounge or meeting room, but for this event, the trailer was on the street food truck style. She said this will be the first of several bookings at this locale as part of Java Joy’s new subscription program: companies that book at least four times in one year can receive a discounted rate. 
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“We’re really great at grand openings or holidays, parties where businesses are celebrating certain big events,” Graben said. “At the same time, we’re plugged into businesses on a weekly, monthly basis that just want us there simply for their staff.”
>> bold coffee for a bold future
 
ESP decided early on to partner with Jittery Joe’s when Java Joy launched. Graben said the Athens coffee roastery already head the name recognition, and might be a way to lessen the barrier to companies interested in booking the coffee cart. Perhaps it’s the coffee — there’s a custom Java Joy blend available now in stores — or perhaps it’s the people, but whatever it is, the demand for Java Joy continues to grow.
​
“We’re in straight-up North Carolina soon for a wedding,” Nelms said.
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joyristas megan and colin help at the jittery joe's roastery. | courtesy photo
In the Classic City, Java Joy launched a new partnership with the YMCA on weekends inviting businesses to sponsor coffee, and joyristas now have the chance to work directly at the Jittery Joe’s roastery on Monday a month.

“YMCA is like, we do events with basketball games. People play games, and we serve coffee for them,” McCutcheon said.

Her work with Java Joy inspired McCutcheon to create her own business — Meg’s Mess. She said the name in part comes from the mess she tends to leave in the kitchen, like red velvet on her mom’s mixer after making a cake.

As for Nelms, he gets the most out of being hands-on.

“Nathan really enjoys the kind of behind-the-scenes aspect of it,” Graben said. “You don’t tell him what needs to be loaded, he just grabs the cambros and takes them to the van.”

The other barrier Java Joy’s staff hopes to lessen is interacting with adults of different abilities.
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“That’s an amazing thing to witness. Some people have hesitancies with interacting with people with disabilities, and they don’t know how to get past it,” Graben said. “You see someone taken aback at first … by the end of it they leave with the biggest smile on their face. That’s what’s so special about our brand. We meet you where you are and you end up having this experience you didn’t’ expect, and a lot of people’s lives are changed because of it.”
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above: joyristas set up the coffee cart at an athens, georgia event. below, from left: the java joy blend of jittery joe's coffee; joyristas colin and nicky at an event; muffins and cups, ready to go. | courtesy photos
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>> spread the joy <<
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Georgia’s full of locally owned businesses. Which one should be featured next?
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sarah cook >> on work-from-home motherhood

2/6/2019

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It’s 2019. Yes, many jobs still have that traditional office setting … but increasingly, as journalist Carolyn Crist alluded to during her TedxUGA talk a few years ago, there are opportunities for working remotely or working from home. Though that can be great for some folks’ work-personal life harmony, it can be a bit of an adjustment for those used to working in an office setting and then swapping to an at-home situation. Sarah Cook, director of domestic trade with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, recently made such a transition. Her previous position was with the Center of Innovation for Agribusiness on the University of Georgia-Tifton campus, where she worked for nearly a decade.

DAD: When the opportunity to work for Georgia Grown came up, why did you 
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sarah cook, director of domestic tourism with the georgia department of agriculture. | courtesy photo
decide to stay in south Georgia instead of moving to Atlanta?
 
Sarah: Both mine and my husband’s families are from Turner County. I’m married to my high-school sweetheart. He’s the reason I love ag because he was president of the FFA when I was in high school — he taught me how to show sheep. When I graduated college, we moved back to Ashburn [Georgia] on purpose because we loved south Georgia. We knew we were going to have kids one day and we needed the support of our families with both of us working and traveling.
 
Atlanta is so busy and we’ve been used to this lifestyle pretty much our whole lives, except for college, and the traffic is a little crazy. Here I have all the perks of small town life, plus if I need to be in Atlanta, I can be there in two hours and 15 minutes. 
 
After 10 years in an office setting, what’s it been like adjusting to a home office?
 
When I started working from home, I said, “I’m going to get up every single day and get dressed as if I was going to be at an office.” That lasted about four months. It helps because I have a designated office in my house — there’s no television; the snacks are all downstairs, so it’s like I have to go and eat my lunch downstairs. And sometimes I get on a roll up here and work through lunch, so it’s nice to have that designated space.
 
I am the primary person who runs the kids to school in the morning. I have to put on … not pajamas, so that helps. I just feel like it jump-starts me to go ahead and have a shower in the morning even if I’m putting on jeans and something casual. 
 
The struggle to adapting to working from home, on a personal level, has been kind of tricky because I have to make plans to see people. It’s not just seeing them in the kitchen and heating up my lunch, it’s a lot more planning.
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sarah with her husband justin and children wyatt and georgia. | courtesy photo
So yes, you work from home, but your job requires travel too — plus you have two kids, and you have to intentionally cultivate relationships with your colleagues since you don’t see them every day. How do you keep all of these things organized?
 
I have a deep and personal love affair with my Outlook calendar and my planner. I am a very scheduled person and I live and die by what’s on the calendar. So that’s the easy answer in juggling my schedule.

Technology these days makes it great. My husband’s a firefighter and he works every third day. As far as seeing coworkers, a lot of times we see each other at events. We have weekly conference calls and we’re starting to have monthly or semi-monthly meetings because it’s important to have everybody in the same room. It’s definitely an effort; it doesn’t happen naturally. Those lunch meetings that I’m putting on my calendar that I’m making a concerted 
effort for are really important to keep up a good network. Setting aside time for a one-on-one conversation is important. Keeping those relationships fresh and active is important not only in our industry, but with people I went to high school with, too. They’re working, they have kids, they’re juggling all the things; it’s nice to have a sanity check.
 
You mentioned your email calendar and planner. Why are these the tools that work best for you?
 
When I graduated high school, I was such a technology nerd [my now-husband] bought me a Palm Pilot for college. Like, syllabus day was my favorite day in college because I would go ahead and put in deadlines and tests. That’s a personality thing — some people cannot live by a calendar. But with technology, we all walk around with a smart phone in our hand at all times. I can be driving down the road and tell Siri, “call the car dealership and set up that appointment,” or “put that reminder on for Tuesday morning” and it’ll pop up and remind me. 
 
I operate out of Outlook for work for my email system. That shows up on my native iPhone calendar, so that just works nicely. I also have a physical planner that I utilize because sometimes it’s nice just to have it in my hand. Once a week I’ll just double-check to make sure [an event] is in both places.
 
I use a planner that’s like a perpetual planner. So when the month goes by, I’ll stick the January tab in the back and add some more planner pages that have the week-at-a-time view. I always have a full 12 months. 
 
How do you set boundaries between work and home, especially since they’re in the same place?
 
I utilize the “do not disturb” feature on my iPhone and I have all of my notifications turned off for emails. If somebody texts me for work it’ll still pop up, but honestly a lot of times when it’s time to sit down and eat supper, all the cell phones are not in the kitchen. Personal phones, work phones, they’re put away because we only have a few hours at night.
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top: sarah with her son, 7-year-old wyatt. bottom: sarah holds her 2-year-old daughter, georgia. | courtesy photos
One thing I hear a lot in leadership training in my skincare + cosmetics company is how to deal with “mommy guilt” — aka needing or wanting to work, but also feeling as though if you’re working, you’re somehow neglecting your kids or family. Is this something you struggle — or struggled — with? 
 
Every working mother that I know personally faces that to some degree at some time or another. I think taking a wholistic approach to it is important and understanding that I am not just a mom, but I am also a woman with career ambitions. I’m a wife, I’m a friend, and valuing maintaining those aspects of myself are important. You have to schedule date nights because when the kids grow up, you still have to have a career that you love, that you’re proud of. I have a very supportive husband that supports me and my career and values my career as much as he values his own.
 
I’m very fortunate — I have a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old. We haven’t started doing like, all the things. We told [our son] to pick one thing he really wants to do and try it out. For him, it’s showing sheep for 4-H. That’s a great family activity. So if there’s a sheep show on the calendar, I hold that pretty sacred unless there’s like a trade show that’s planned out a year ahead of time. My husband Justin said he would be in charge of Boy Scouts, so I didn’t make that a priority in my schedule. Then of course I try to be at school performances, but we have two great mothers that have semi-flexible schedules, which make that a little special for him.
 
Somebody explained to me that every life has seasons. There are times when it is really hard to leave little kids at home, but you’re also going to have teenagers who are self-sufficient and going to 
drive themselves one day. If you’re fortunate like I am to have a mother and mother-in-law and sister to help fill in the gaps, that’s great. If not, have a reliable babysitter or friend. The kids need a break from us as well, and that alleviates that.
 
Women, especially women that work from home and are juggling all the things, just need to remind themselves to give themselves some grace. You really only have 100 percent of yourself, so unless you quit your job and not have a partner … you do have to balance it. So don’t hold yourself to an impossible standard. The same thing with maintaining friendships and if you’re in a religion. Just know what’s important, and make sure you’re giving what you want to it, but not letting it run you over.
The #LeadingLadies series highlights women entrepreneurs and women who are outstanding in their fields. Have someone you’d like to see here on a future Wednesday? Shoot me a message, pretty please! Read past #LeadingLadies posts here.
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rollin' on the river

1/22/2019

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While a college student at then-Augusta State University, management major Cole Watkins took a class that challenged him to create a business. Inspired by past times he’d taken his friends out kayaking, he conceptualized Cole Watkins Tours — now rated the No. 4 thing to do in Evans, Georgia, on TripAdvisor. 

At the time Cole Watkins Tours was in development, there was an outdoors store already in Evans that offered kayak rentals, but Watkins saw a need with his model and decided to fill it.
​
“If you were done kayaking when Escape Outdoors closed, you had to bring it back the next day,” he said, adding that for some folks, that was fine, but it could be an inconvenience or deterrent to others. 

“With my company I didn’t want to have a storefront because that was going to cost money. I didn’t have money. What I wanted to do was start slowly building my inventory of kayaks,” Watkins said.
​
When he started, Watkins had three kayaks in inventory — so he could take a husband and wife on a tour, but if they had a kid, one of the three had to sit out. 
​
“Now I’m up to 19 kayaks. I don’t want to get any more than that,” he said.
>> potential sets sail
 
Initially, part of the business plan was for each entrepreneur to explain to their classmates how they would use a $30,000 loan from the bank. The professor met Watkins with raised eyebrows when he didn’t mention his loan during his presentation.

“I was like, ‘I don’t need it.’ She’s like, ‘You don’t need a loan?’ I was like, ‘No, this is what I have 
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cole watkins, owner of cole watkins tours, feeds a donkey during a tour stop at stallings island. | courtesy photo
now. I’m going to start it and I’m going to start making money year one,’” he said. “I didn’t show her up but like, why borrow if my plan doesn’t need it?”

His plan was voted top in the class, and several classmates were assigned to his team to put together the official business plan. That was about the time Watkins got serious about the potential Cole Watkins Tours had.

“I thought we could really make money with this. I got on Vistaprint to get business cards. When I tallied it up, it was $20. I was like, I don’t know if I want to spend $20. … For $20, I could get three or four drinks tonight at the bar. If I spend $20, will I make it back? So — ugh, click,” he said. “Then my first phone call came.”

Watkins’ first tour earned him $90. A portion of his profits went back into building up his kayak inventory, first getting to seven, then eight, then finally the 19 he has now. 

In addition to the exercise benefits of kayaking, getting out on the water is a good way to de-stress and explore the Augusta area. The routes offered by Cole Watkins Tours take paddlers through Savannah River tributary Betty’s Branch, down the Augusta Canal, to visit wild donkeys at Stallings Island or to a close-up visit to the J. Strom Thurmond Dam.
​
“We’ve had kids as young as 1 in the kayaks with their parents and as old as, I didn’t ask, but upper 70s, maybe 80s. It’s not a hard thing to do. Augusta is a great spot to learn because there’s no crazy rapids. Most of the routes we offer are still or float downstream, like a lazy river,” Watkins said. 
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from left: my brother barret, mom terri, me and my dad jayson during our CWT trip. | courtesy photo
Watkins and I went to school together since about the third grade, and I can personally attest that his kayak tours are instructional, awesome and a great thing to get your dad for Father’s Day. Bonus points for him teaching me how to paddle and stay afloat, as swimming is not my strong suit. 

It sounds like I was a tad luckier than Watkins’ first customer.

“I had to learn that day that people have different balancing abilities for different body 
types. Girls are way more balanced at kayaking. Their center of gravity is in their hips. Guys, especially muscled-up guys, are a little more wobbly,” Watkins said. “I was thinking [my first customer] was going to be fine in this kayak, and he fell in on a very cold 8 a.m. morning. My very first person I slid in tipped over.”
​
Since then, he’s only had five or six paddlers take unintended dips in the water.
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cole watkins, right, with wife ashley and son cash. | courtesy photo
​>> navigating the flow
 
Watkins has a full-time job with Aggressor Adventures — a luxury river and adventure cruise company, which also offers scuba diving yachts — and never saw Cole Watkins Tours as something to replace that. It’s one reason he wants to keep the business more intimate and kayaker-focused, rather than scale up to make him a millionaire.
​
“I’m probably the only guy in town who doesn’t want to get bigger,” he said. “I have a different plan of what I want to be career-wise, and that’s going to be lined up at the scuba diving company. And also, with the kayak company, here in Augusta, a lot of people have started to open other businesses like mine.”
One of the plus-sides of business ownership is that at times when Watkins needed the extra income, he could make the decision and  give himself a raise.

“2016 is when I found out my son was coming, so I worked my butt off and had my best year yet. That’s all side money on the weekend,” Watkins said. “I put in a lot more hours. I was getting a lot more progressive at using money on Facebook to do group tours, even on weeknights. Normally when I got off work I go home. That year I was doing every Tuesday and Thursday [on the water], even Fridays. Anything I got, I accepted, and tried to make it work.”

Now that he’s both a husband and a father, and soon a father of two, Watkins dialed back how much he’s out on the water so he can spend more time with his family. He focuses a lot on rentals and tries to capitalize on having three waves of kayakers out each weekend day the business is open, and he reserves time to go on family vacations twice a year or so. 
​
Since he is more selective now than in previous years, Watkins will refer kayakers to his competitors if the situation calls for it.
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cole watkins [in the front center kayak] leads a group tour on the water. | courtesy photo
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picturesque view from the front of a CWT kayak. | courtesy photo
“If I know they want to go with me, I can sometimes talk them into next week. But I don’t want to turn them off their goal. I want out-of-towners to always feel like we have good hospitality in Augusta, so I’ll always refer them to a competitor instead of me,” Watkins said. “I operate a weird way but I think it’s, I’m not all-in on this company being my only source of income.”
​
He learned a lot about business ownership since 2011: the importance of minimizing overhead if you don’t have a lot of start-up capital; how heavy canoes are compared to kayaks; why entrepreneurs should invest in a little bit of advertising such as business cards and putting their logo on their equipment; just for starters. But the biggest lesson he learned was to get out of his comfort zone.

“I was going to be on the water giving every tour. I wasn’t planning on doing rentals. One day this guy called me up and said, ‘I’ve done Betty’s Branch, can I just rent a kayak?’ He was like, ‘I’ll just pay half the price,’” Watkins said, adding he was exceedingly uneasy about sending his ​
kayaks out on the water with an individual he only sort-of knew. “I took him out there and he gave me $25 each. I was like, ‘Shoot, I just made $50, which was a lot of money for me when I was 21. I didn’t have to do anything but pick it up. So my whole plan changed.”

Today, about 66 percent of his business comes from kayak rentals.
​
“That was a thing that made me uncomfortable, but wound up being the best thing for this model,” he said.
<< get to paddling >>
Tour rates start at $50 for adults and $25 for kids ages 12 and under, and there is a discount if you provide your own kayak or canoe. Rental rates are $30 for a single kayak and $50 tandem. Group and military rates are available.
​For more details, visit the official website.
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Georgia’s full of locally owned businesses. Which one should be featured next?
​
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carolyn crist >> journalist, entrepreneur, coach.

1/15/2019

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carolyn crist | photo by jordana dale.
Carolyn Crist was my first newspaper editor at The Red & Black and during the ensuing decade-plus became one of my “grown-up” newspaper job colleagues, people I listed on my reference lists, idea bouncer-offer and trusted role model in so many ways. She holds a bachelor’s degree in newspapers and a master’s in health and medical journalism. Crist became a freelance journalist full-time about five years ago, and also co-owned an Athens, Georgia, print and framing shop. In 2019, her focus shifts back to that which she knows best, but with a twist — this year, she wants to teach you everything she knows.

DAD: It’s been an adventurous few years with the shop, which you recently announced would close permanently. What made you start that journey?
​CRIST: When I was freelancing in grad school, I realized I was spending a lot of time on my couch, working in my pajamas and in my apartment. I found that pretty quickly after working in the newsroom environment for so many years, I was alone. My alternative or social outlet in Athens was going out to a bar and hanging out with people, and I realized I was doing that too much in the evening right around or after dinner. I had been thinking about ways to become more involved, and people would be like, “Get a hobby, Carolyn, go do some yoga or pick up some yarn and actually practice crocheting.”
 
[My best friend] was leaving her job and proposed the idea to me, and something about it just caught me. When I came back to town that summer we started launching the idea.
 
When y’all planned what would become Pixel & Ink, what was going through your mind about how to make this a reality?
 
Can we find a place to put a shop like this? What would the rent be like at a place where we’d put a shop like this? Can we afford the start-up cost?
 
What would you say are the biggest lessons you learned about starting and running a business? Are these things you’ll consider as you launch your new business?
 
I don’t necessarily advise it now, but we applied for a couple of business credit cards after we filed for our LLC. We didn’t necessarily create a great business plan — we didn’t do it the best way to do profit. 
 
I think, as much as people like to talk about how boring business plans are, how you don’t need to think too much, you just need to take action … it is still important to have a business plan in terms of planning the products and the prices; how many you need to make to be able to pay your bills, and not just pay your bills, but pay yourself a salary. We’ve always been able to pay the bills but not ourselves. And that doesn’t work. You can only go so far without seeing the fruits of your labor.
 
One of the things that always struck me about Pixel & Ink was how it scaled. For a couple years there, it was in small spaces, and then most recently in a three-story building that incorporated an art gallery and there were talks of adding another business partnership in the basement. Obviously your freelance writing courses and coaching are different, but how did you choose to make that scaling jump? How did you learn from that?
 
Be careful about scaling up when you’re ready to scale. We were at that point where we were like, “Well, should we just do printing? Should we get rid of some of the other editing-intensive, time-intensive services, or should we scale up like crazy, hire staff to boost revenue, open an art gallery and start custom framing?” That went really well, but I think we may have also let our overhead costs get to be too much. We hired three employees and we probably should have only hired one; maybe open our shop first and then open the gallery later. There’s so many variables. If you actually want to scale, scale carefully.
 
We saw that some of the things we had scaled weren’t sustainable, and we wanted to shore up some of the losses we were facing. One of the things that we did was change our hours so we could get more work done. We changed to appointment-only instead of retail. We were trying to focus our clientele on artists and people who were looking at custom framing versus someone who would go to Michael’s and want Michael’s pricing. 
 
Both you and your fellow co-owner went through some pretty serious life changes while Pixel & Ink was open. How did that lead you to decide this was the direction you wanted to take, especially once you found out your landlord was selling your building?
 
When we found out Saucehouse did want to move into the building early, we decided not to move a fifth time.
 
I was thinking more about journalism again. A year ago I really started listening to podcasts, reading blogs, watching waytoo many webinars to learn how to create an online business for Pixel & Ink. It was a locally based brick-and-mortar store. We were expanding our website for print and frame orders … we were going to develop these online resources for our customers and while I was kind of creating the ideas for Pixel & Ink’s resources, in my brain I was also creating, “What would I do as Carolyn Crist as a brand? What do I know? Freelance journalism.”
OK. All the details. What does that mean?

I have a lot of people come up to me at conferences and they’re like, “How do you do that? Is that a real job? Are you still looking for a job in newspapers?” I ​want to freelance for [newspapers], yes, but I wanted to work for 
myself years ago from the start. I’m not doing this as a temporary thing. I’m taking this as a brand online as a way to teach people how to make freelancing, specifically freelance journalism, work for them.
 
We’re seeing more and more freelance and independent workers [see Crist’s TEDxUGA talk on this topic above]. I’m kind of building my own brand on that and give free information, but also have a video course. I’m also putting in personal training and coaching kind of offerings as well if people want me to help them create one-on-one plans of, “I have this dream publication, how do I pitch this,” or if they have specific questions.
 
In my cosmetics and skincare company, we hear a lot that there’s never a perfect time. Just, you know, do it and stop waiting. What was your impetus to decide January 2019 was when this would begin?
 
I really began dreaming about doing my own thing in September-October. The gradual pivots and transformations help you to plan. November was when we really knew about Saucehouse [buying the Pixel & Ink building], so sometimes outside influences will make you realize you will need to make some kind of change. We knew we’d have to move anyway no matter who bought the place. We were already kind of thinking about it. The more we were thinking, I just started planning. 
 
I didn’t really get it down on paper and organized and on a website and create all the email lists until the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I think the lesson there would be to give yourself time to de-clutter. You can’t cram too much into your brain. If you have outstanding orders or clients and projects, go ahead and wrap them up, take a little bit of a break for yourself and start getting your next thing going. 
 
It also helps that I need the money. Money’s a good motivator.
 
Earlier you mentioned that one of the reasons you jumped in on Pixel & Ink was to be inspired to maybe not wear your pajamas as work attire as often. Since you’re migrating back into a work-from-home environment pretty exclusively with this, plus your continued freelance writing, how will you avoid the pitfall of that pj comfort zone?
 
I feel like mental health-wise I’m in a better headspace. I’m going to focus on my physical health. When I am done with freelance by like 3, 4 or 5, I’ll go [to my gym] to get out. My brain just wants me to leave the house. It’s still the same reset.
 
And things like these where I have dinners and lunch and coffee meetings outside of the house. Now I can go and do something else the rest of the afternoon, but I feel like I went out. I’m sure as I get more into the year and there are several days in a row when I’m really stuck at home it’ll be tough, but I think … I’ve arrived back at the conclusion that I like working at home, so I’ll find strategies that make it OK.
 
Clearly you have the writing chops and a couple of degrees to prove you’re pretty good at what you do. But how do you come out and call yourself an expert on these topics, able to teach others?
 
It is a lot of mindset stuff. I have done it full-time and maybe I haven’t made a million dollars … but I have been able to live on it and work on another business while doing it. One of the key factors is, have people asked me my advice about it? Which is true. I’m not a 30-year journalist, but I can mentor others who are starting out.
 
Another aspect of it too, I’m so obsessed with this personally, in terms of buying transformational courses from other people. I realized there are some offerings with freelance journalism but they’re not quite what I want to offer. I was looking for it, so I might as well create it and see if others will buy it. 
The #LeadingLadies series highlights women entrepreneurs and women who are outstanding in their fields. Have someone you’d like to see here on a future Wednesday? Shoot me a message, pretty please! Read past #LeadingLadies posts here.
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