As I come up on the end of my firs week of business, I want to stop and reflect. I know that If I don’t write about it now, I’m going to forget how magical and amazing and difficult and crazy this week has been. First and foremost, This has arguably been on of the most exciting weeks of my life. To see a dream come true and the support that has come out of everywhere has been immaculate. The support from my wife as I was not sleeping and being away from home for long hours, leaving her to take care of Karis by herself and watch her step up and take on that extra responsibility. The support from my parents coming over and bagging coffee and prepping the orders alongside of me so I don’t have to stay awake every second of this week has been invaluable. And let me tell you, stay awake every second of the week I almost did. Before I get there, let me start at the beginning. 

It’s Black Friday morning, and we wake up in Owensboro at 5am. It’s been years since my family got together in Chicago where my Grandma lives, and she wants to meet her newest great grand babies. My sister flew in from Phoenix, we were going to drive up from Kentucky (about a 5 hour drive) and we would have thanksgiving with all of the rest of our extended family in Chicago. All of this is wonderful and beautiful and great, but I have to work in Louisville at 6:15 in the morning on Saturday. So I caught a flight from Chicago, got home at midnight to Louisville, and then got ready to wake up in a few short hours. In the airport, I thought “this is the perfect time to launch my website! It’s Black Friday, Small business Saturday the next day, we can do a sale and see what happens!” And in the best of ways, I was right. Y’all came out of the WOODWORKS in support. My heart was so full as I saw all of the shares on Facebook, and all of the orders come through!! At the end of that Saturday, I officially had 30 orders placed, and the 66 bags of coffee needing to be prepped and shipped out the door. 

I wish I could have told you that I tightened up my bootstraps, fired up the roaster, and got to work that very day, but my day job got in the way. Remember how I said I had to work at 6:15? It was actually a double. Plus, on top of that, I had an 125 pound coffee order that needed to be roasted for the following Saturday. That meant that as all of these orders were coming in, I was stuck at the roastery, roasting for both of my jobs. I started my day at 6:15am, and finally finished my day at 10:30pm with all of my roasts done, and 145lbs of coffee in big tubs coming back home with me to be prepped for the catering order on Saturday. 

Excited to start the day roasting, the business of Sunday got to me and I didn’t start roasting until 9pm that night. There were some technical difficulties that occurred in the Thurman household that required me to get a new printer for the bag labels, and it ended up being a bit of a wild goose chase all throughout the day. On top of that, I received 8 more orders, for 21 more bags of coffee. For those keeping score at home, that’s 87 bags of coffee needed to be roasted, and a grand total of 0 bags roasted so far. So 9pm comes, and I put my roasting hat on, and get to work. I roast from 9-5am at home that night, stopping to get a lil nap in before work at 7am. I get a little over halfway done with my orders, with 31 lbs roasted and 15lbs to go! I get home from work, give Karis and Amanda a hug, and get back to work. I finish up the roasting at around 6pm, and I think the hard part is done! Boy, was I wrong. 

If you’re new to the blog or new to the person that is Christian Thurman, allow me to let you in on a little secret: when it comes to properly judging the time needed for administrative tasks, I am objectively the worst human in the world. What I thought would be a breeze that I could finish in one night of hard work, turned into an almost three day process. It turns out, bagging, properly labeling, and getting coffee ready to be ground is a lot tougher than it looks!! Thankfully, my mom and dad stepped in and saved the day. Mom printed packing slips, dad cut labels, and I wrote letters and weighed out coffee to be bagged. This process went on until about 11pm, and I had about half of the orders finished, and then mom and dad went back home to get some much deserved sleep. I worked for about another 4 hours, and ended up getting a couple of hours of sleep again before work at 5:45. We’re officially about halfway done with all of the online orders, but I still have to pack and prep the 125 lbs of coffee for my catering order, and Saturday is coming quick. I end up finishing most of the coffee orders on Tuesday, with the exception of 5 new orders that came in that day. Seriously, you guys rock. I cannot say it enough, the support kept flowing in and I have been so honored to roast and send out all of the bags of coffee to every single wonderful one of you! However, Wednesday was the big night. I loaded up my car with all of the coffee, and went to grind and prep all of the orders for Saturday. I finally finished up the arduous task at 3am, and got a record 2.5 hours of sleep for the week before work at 6. Thankfully, someone took my shift in the afternoon so I didn’t have to work a double! That means I could finish up all of my final orders, ship out the rest of the coffee, and for the first time all week, finally get some sleep. Friday comes and goes, and the big event on Saturday is the last hurdle before the weekend finish line! 

Saturday ended up being a dream come true. It was an open house event for a ministry, taking time to thank all of their supporters throughout the year. I was tasked with being the barista for the event, making drinks for all of the supporters. In the span of 4 hours, we made over 50 lattes, americanos, hot chocolates, and even one espresso tonic! The event went so smoothly, and it was so great to serve drinks to people that perked up with the both the caffeine, and a smile that was served alongside of it. Truth be told, I wish I could do events like that for the rest of my life. To have people enjoy my coffee and order it is a lot of fun, but seeing people enjoy the coffee that you roasted and prepared right in front of them? That was a joy that I’ve never experienced before. 

The artist in me is always fearful: I’m afraid that I’m the only one that actually likes my coffee, and everyone else is just being kind. Afraid that somehow I’ve lost my touch and my coffee isn’t actually good at all. Fearful that I’ve wasted all of my time with this silly little dream of mine  and it wasn’t worth all of the nights awake, all the time away form my baby girl, and all the extra pressure on my parents to help me out. I think like everyone in life, we want to do things well. We want to create something that others enjoy, and hate when we miss the mark. We just wanna be great at the things that we want to be great at. However, there are moments in our lives where it’s time to bring our creations to the world. To take the leap of faith, to show up to the test that the Lord has put before us. And it’s in those moments; moments like Saturday, that make all of the sacrifice worth it. To complete the job. To highlight your passions. To see the dreams come true right before your eyes. 

The best part about this week is that it’s not over! The journey has just begun. If you were a part of the wonderful week, thank you. I hope the coffee that ended up on your doorstep brought a little extra Light & Life into your home. For those of you just tuning in, buckle up: we got a lot more creating to do. I hope you pursue your dreams alongside of me, and we continue to consume to create, and create to inspire.