Casting my net at a networking event

Evening all,

One of the nice things about my new role as catering queen (in waiting) of the corporate sector is that it will require a change of image. I will need a new wardrobe, or at the very least a few "key pieces" for the season,...no more Converses, jeans or comfy Tee's,

I may even have to brush my hair..

..

On Thursday evening as one of Dublin Chamber newest members, I'll be attending an afterworks networking event in Mason Hayes Curran in Barrow St & I will need to look sharp, competent, a girl ready to do business. Already I'm wondering what to wear.

There are so many options to consider,

I could opt for

...the killer networker look.. pencil skirt, crisp white shirt, seriously high shoes...

or

I could pull that back & go casual smart, "I'm a nice girl, you'd be in a safe pair of hands with me"

or

I could just dress like me but smarter?

That's it,sorted, I'll wear a smart pair of jeans/ black legging, a designer Tee, a tailored jacket & my secret weapon, my new 5 inch chunky platform boots & nobody will even realise, as I smile & sparkle that this nice sweet girl from The Delicious Food Co, is in fact a killer networker at work.

Your business card please!

Shirley

Corporate World ....here I come again !

Evening All,

So here I am on a Saturday evening pouring over the Google machine, (as Mr Delicious refers to it) researching images of sandwiches & sandwich platters, wondering not for the first time,

"how did I get here"

In a previous life I was featured in a glossy magazine as a fashion stylist to watch, with page after glorious shiny page of gorgeous images of Irish fashion designers

all chosen & styled by
 MOI

Those who knew me back then still giggle at the irony that the generous expense account lunches, the flash company cars & designer suits have been replaced with a white van & me packing shelves of shops with my wonderful salads & sandwiches. In truth,  the biggest irony of all is that underneath those designer suits lay a dormant hippie never truly destined for the constraints of corporate life.

Two weeks ago we made the decision to merge the two  assets of our business our great food & my sales/people skills. So that is where we will be focussing our attention in the next few months.I will no longer be found stacking shelves with our gorgeous Delicious Food Co produce, although we will still be on sale in shops, I'll be back in my designer gear, targeting the corporate market.

We had a great start to our corporate campaign this week with, two small catering gigs and  a posh do in The Royal Irish Academy, yesterday for over eighty people, where several people asked for my business card & the client was incredibly complimentary. It felt good to be dressed to impress, to put on a delicious spread & to get such immediate positive feedback.

And of course the icing on the cake was when the client pulled out his cheque book, clicked his pen ready to write & uttered those wonderful words,
"Now, how much do I owe so I can settle with you now"

delicious !


Shirley

x

Smoking Guns...Everywhere

Evening all,

Last week was one of those cash flow weeks that was really trying. The good cop/bad cop routine of one particular accounts dept was especially stressful. Good cop promised that I'd have my money on time this month. When it didn't come, day after promised day, he blamed bad cop....the one who makes the payments....

he, being the good guy would call them sort it out.

A week later still no money & I discover bad cop was on holidays all the while, and good cop hadn't authorized payment , so it was never on it's way to me as promised at the beginning of the month, but guess who ended up in trouble  feeling like they'd been shot.

 ME !

I was trying to explain the intricacies of cash flow  to my 13 year old daughter, when she was the one who pulled the trigger....

."Mom, I have no idea what you are talking about...

"I am NOT your  therapist "

Ouch !

Shirley 

Post 2013 Calm.....Breathe in ...breathe out......

Evening all,

I haven't been blogging much of late. I mentioned before I thought I had lost my voice, but it's not just that, to blog every week you need to keep at it, punching it out every week getting into a stride. So bear with me, I'm a bit rusty, a bit sensitive after an innocent comment that I reveal too much about myself & business, from my biggest fan & critic...so I need to get back in my groove.

The themes over the past year have been, cash flow, the van, the brand. I have to be honest a year ago when I told you my stories my head was in a completely different space. I tried to tell that story from the prospective of a small business owner & it worked because it was honest. If you were in that head space you would have understood immediately and many did & told me so.

I am currently on a mission to file every scrap of paper/ receipt/ recipe before the end of this week.I am always writing stuff down on envelopes, notebooks, pieces of paper. Each one a true snippet into my life...the most personal stuff with the most benign

"have a knot in the pit of my stomach..gotta get x sorted... 

.....Ploughman's x 10,Classic Club x 10...Med BLT x 5.....

Platter x 25 Med Council Thurs....noon
breathe in...., breathe out...stay calm..

Peter gym 086 056....Ballyturk ...great reviews... book....

My scribbles, reflect my head perfectly, my anxieties, my stresses,my highs, my control, my focus on the business whilst catching sight of something on a hoarding poster that grabs my attention as I deliver my gorgeous salads & sandwiches in my van around the city.

So my story will still be that of a small business owner, currently wondering if invoice discounting is manna from heaven or the breath of Satan on a business. But hopefully the story will be more upbeat, sales are rocketing, but so are costs, nights are still sleepless but not so anxiously so.I'm trying to get a retail outlet & have my eye in somewhere. But unlike last year, I'm  chilled...if we get it great & if not if just not meant to be

.....not this time anyway.....

Everybody join in

"ce sera, sera, what ever will be will be...

Shirley xx

Life...A Triumph ..(no greater achievement)

Evening All,

It's been an awful week.

 Two friends died this week, Richie who died  suddenly last Sunday & Fiona on Wednesday evening after a long & awful battle with cancer.Two deaths followed by two funerals; Richie's a beautiful eloquent humanist farewell in Glasnevin and Fiona's a wonderful traditional religious mass in Sandymount. The untimely death of friends taken from us way before their time, should make us challenge the way we live our lives. Carpe Diem and all that, or should it?

Today I listened to an RTE radio documentary  about the fabulous Plurabelle Paddlers,which Fiona set up in 2010. A dragon boating club for women who had been affected by breast cancer. The idea being to enhance the well being of women affected by cancer by offering a sporting activity that had proven links to improving the health of women sufferers. At the beginning of the documentary, Fiona spoke about when cancer first struck. She, like most people,  was under the impression that such a diagnosis would be, for some reason, a  defining moment, where one re evaluates their own life. She said quite simply with her signature giggle..".I didn't feel a need to evaluate my life.. I was happy with how my life was going"  

And so it is with mine. I have been   happy of late as how my life is going, but some things need to change. I hadn't seen Richie or his wife Sandra who was my flat mate at college for ages, busy with work, kids, life..I called Sandra immediately I heard the news of Richie's death. She told me how she had already called the house earlier, but my mailbox was full, I didn't even know I had a landline, never mind a mailbox to be filled.

I had been in touch with Fiona almost daily up until last Tuesday, she had been ill for so long, yet her death was shocking in it's finality. But most poignant of all was the eulogies at both funerals.  Richie's male friends spoke of their  friend with such love, Sandra spoke so beautifully of a man who we all know adored her. And then it was Eamonn, Fiona's husbands turn. He spoke so beautifully about how amazing Fiona was & how much she amazed him. He finished his eulogy with the wonderful truth, that whilst much, much too short, Fiona's  life had been a triumph.

So yes, the deaths of my friends may well have challenged my life in a subtle way. 

 We will aim to turn The Delicious Food Co logo pink  for October  and we will see what we can do with that for breast cancer awareness month....friends I have been meaning to get in touch with have been contacted.I ask you dear reader to do likewise, because the ultimate truth is that life is short & precious.

www.plurabellepaddlers.com

Shirley x

All is well that ends well.

Evening All,

Yes we're home. Back from the holiday of a life time in NYC. It was the best holiday of my life. We had such fun, so many laughs & not a cross word between us in the two weeks.I even fulfilled what I promised in my last blog & put work firmly in a box in Dublin & didn't let it near my mind for 12 blissful days. I haven't been even close to doing that before whilst on holidays.

On Monday I drove into work at 6am with only a mild sense of trepidation & when I walked into the kitchen & saw the beams on Mr Delicious & the lads faces I knew that our holiday had been a triumph in both New York & Dublin. They excelled themselves.Even the bad boy label printer played ball & didn't act up once.

The holiday might  not have had quite the happy homecoming, had a drama that unfolded in our absence ended differently.We have a dog, A dog that is loved in a way that moves us to tears in the same way our anecdotes about him bore others to tears.Putting him a kennel was unthinkable, I thought we might even have to share him among the offers that would come in from friends to take him.

 SILENCE!

Eventually I asked my sister if she would take him & bless her soul she said yes. As the holiday approached she said was even looking forward to having him. The countdown to the holidays became less how many days til NY, but how many days until we had to leave Lemmy, confused, distraught & feeling abandoned.

I dropped him off the evening prior to our departure, wiped a tear as I bid him farewell. Two days later he went missing in Marley Park. Can't you just imagine the panic. My poor sister, her husband & three kids spent days pounding the streets, sticking up posters, door to door investigations,praying to St Anthony, promising him ANYTHING if our dog could just be found. My five other siblings joined in the prayer vigils...Jesus, not the dog, not that dog....not Shirley's dog, please , please God return him safely, whilst each one smugly  thought "thank God it's Catherine who lost him & not me".

And then all their prayers were answered.

Lemmy, a two year old frisky collie, had discovered his inner sheepdog found his way to ENNISKERRY. I like to think he might have had fun with sheep he met along the mountainous Wicklow hills, that he had the adventure of a life time, running with wild abandon, chasing rabbits..until he arrived on the doorstep of a man two days later. A man who God bless him reunited him with a distraught Catherine via lostandfoundpets.ie

Today, Catherine recovered from her ordeal, said to me..."I know he must be have been micro chipped but there was just  no way I could call you in the States & ask you....."

Well, ahem, actually, well ....he is now.

Shirley (& Lemmy)

New York State of Mind

Evening All,

Wow, we're here!

All six of us after an epic trip from Dublin to Madrid to Boston to NYC are now on day two of our amazing holiday to NY. The Boston bit was due to JFK closing due to thunder storms. My eldest with much wit announcing that had we come on a famine ship, we'd have got to NYC quicker ! We have swapped house with my cousin; his , a beautiful colonial style four storey house for our tiny mid terraced pad in Dublin 8.

We are in heaven.

I mentioned in my last blog about the fear of leaving our business, of handing it over to our great staff for 10 days. We did as much as we could to prepare everybody, clients & staff and to be honest we can do no more.

If you have been following the blog you know that the business dominates my life, the highs, the lows the agonies & the ecstasies, but not now, not now that I am here .

Myself & Mr Delicious give The Delicious Food Co so much of ourselves 24/7, so this is the time that we discover what The Delicious Food Co gives us. The suppliers we are loyal to, the staff consider family, the clients for whom we go willingly to the ends of the earth.

Last night as I stood on Brooklyn Bridge & watched the 4th July fireworks explode in the NY sky with my daughter Magali who's biggest ambition in life is to come & live in New York, I was moved by the enormity of what was unfolding. Here I was in the most exciting place in the world with the 5 people I love most in the world. An opportunity afforded us by our hard work & a helping hand from my beloved mother. A chance of a lifetime.

I will not check a single work email until my return. I will live in the moment each step of this American dream. This morning we went to an outlet, whilst the kids shopped I had a massage, the elderly Chinese man who massaged me went deliciously way over the allotted time....."why so much stress in your body" he asked.

"Work" I replied, it's tensions still in my mind & my body. But as the day progressed I refused to let my work life near me. It is in a box in Dublin & that is where it is staying for now. And let's face it, if I can't do that in NYC here, for 10 days with the true loves of my life..

what do I really have.

Love

Shirley x