We are pretty transparent, as a company. It's easy to do, because it's just the two of us. (If you're new, it's me, Miss Annie, and my bestie of 23 years, Miss Tara, who do just about everything for the business.) 

Not a lot of small business owners go public to talk about their health. Personally, I consider myself a happy over-sharer. I am public about surviving an abusive marriage. I am public about my anxiety disorder. And I am public when we struggle and that puts us behind schedule. So that's what I'm going to do now.

Last month I finally got health insurance. As a small business owner, that's quite a feat. I hadn't seen a doctor in years and years. So I went to the doc with a laundry list of what's wrong with me, and we started with my anxiety. In the month since, we've moved on to other chronic illnesses I've been dealing with, mostly without realizing it. I am going, step by step (and with the encouragement of my incredible partner/Dom) to figure out what is wrong with me and get the appropriate treatment.

Why am I sharing this with our customer base? Well, because it's had unintended side effects. And I'll sum it up succinctly for you.

• I am on a trial of my second long-term anxiety medication, the doc says on average it takes 2-3 meds before folks find the right one for them. The first made me very sick for a month. But, anxiety meds are a great thing. They've improved my overall sense of wellbeing, my concentration, energy levels, and creativity. Which is why so much new stuff is coming out! 
• Doctor visits take a lot out of me. 3 weeks ago I had an outpatient procedure. 2 days ago, a 30 minute doctor visit turned into 4 hours, where I gave 10 vials of blood as part of the process to diagnose a chronic condition. I came home and slept the rest of the day. (Needless to say, I didn't get to work on orders that day.)
• Yesterday I was so exhausted from this chronic condition that I went to bed for the night at 2pm. (Also, not great for productivity.)

My point in sharing this all with you is so you know we're human. And life gets in the way. And we are absolutely doing the best we can. We are also experiencing an influx of orders higher than we've ever seen. So most days we are working 12-16 hours a day just to fill orders in time. I stay up late in bed on my laptop adding new products to the shop.

We are 100% giving our all to Restrained Grace, and that won't change. All we're asking is for a bit of patience. As always, we don't ever want to sacrifice quality to get orders out in time.

And mistakes happen. Things go wrong. Please contact us and give us a chance to fix those mistakes if they do happen.

We love what we do, we want to keep doing it for a long time. But life does get in the way sometimes. That doesn't mean we won't be giving it 100% every chance we get. (I mean, what even is a day off?) 

Generally, I am feeling good. I am just very tired. And I've gotten so many well wishes from our customers and fans in the Back Room on Facebook. It means the world to me. We adore you all so much, we're even naming our new collections after you! (More on that later.)

Now, this is already too wordy, and I've got sippy cups to decorate.

Thank you for taking the time to empathize with us!

-Miss Annie