We will be debuing 2 new flavours: Pineapple, and Cookies & Cream. Come try our samples.
New Books
Jen’s new book Crushing It and my new book The Mystery of the Dancing Lights, will be available as well. Come get a signed copy and maybe some awesome bonus things.
This weekend (April 1st and 2nd) is Ottawa Mini-ComicCon. It’s at the EY centre. Free entry, but $10 Parking.
Look, they even labelled us on the map.
JenEric Coffee and Designs will be there and we’ll have lots of baskets for Easter and coffee! For the first time since 2019 we’ll be offering free samples again.
Yes, it’s still winter here. There are some advantages to roasting in winter. The first being that the beans cool faster. The second being that roasting things at 250-300 Celcius is a lot more tolerable when the temperature outside is -5.
The shoveling and having to stop for snowfall isn’t as much fun.
I was roasting this weekend to prepare for Mini Ottawa Comiccon. It’s at the EY centre and will be a vendors market with free entrance (Although parking is $10).
Our table at the start of day on Sunday at Ottawa Comic Con 2022
We bought a table back in 2019 and we didn’t want to lose our spot. deposit, or goodwil we’ve accrued over the past almost decade so we decided to do it.
Despite Éric’s injuries, he roasted slowly and made sure to be as safe as possible. The weekend itself was painful, but didn’t set him back in his recovery.
The weekend was a success and all of JenEric Designs and Coffee did well enough to make us want to return. So see you next year.
Here’s a few exciting moments from the Con.
Éric
Writing is a very solitary act most of the time and as an author its easy to think we’re just launching our stories into the aether and that they aren’t being read.
A woman this weekend asked about Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers and when I mentioned that I’d already written a few, she said, “Oh, I know. I’ve read your other books.”
Apparently Everdome was one of her favourites. That made my day.
There was another instance where when someone saw the coffee, they got so excited they screamed in happiness.
It’s nice to be liked.
Jen
Nine years ago, I was prepping to sell at my very first show. I made 4 Mike Wazowski mini balls, and 2 Sour Bill mini balls. This story involves both of those.
As I was setting up on Thursday, I kept pulling things out of the bin and being surprised because I honestly couldn’t remember what I had available.
When someone on Saturday saw my little Mike Wazowski and cooed over it, I offhandedly mentioned that it was the last one. They bought it on the spot.
I mentioned to Éric at this point that we should probably gift the 2 Sour Bills to our kids.
A few minutes later, I peek into the bin under my table, and lo and behold! A Mike Wazowski was staring up at me! :O Apparently, I had another one, and not a second Sour Bill! Colour me suprised. (He sold on Sunday, and when I said he was the last one, it was true this time. I apologize to the first people. I didn’t mean to mislead you, I promise!)
On Saturday evening, someone came up to our booth, exclaiming about the Sour Bill! I was impressed he knew who it was, because not many people do. He said he was going to cosplay as Fix-It Felix Jr next year, and I said flippantly “Well, you should have a Sour Bill with you!” and he replied, “You know what? You’re right.” And BOUGHT HIM!
I no longer have little green ball stuffies after NINE years.
It’s a relief, but also a little sad, because I liked finding ways of displaying him. No, I’m not making more; he was a pain in the butt to make and his pattern is who-knows-where.
Beyond that whole thing, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see my con family after two long years of missing them. It really didn’t feel like it had been so long; I fell into my usual banter about coffee (oh, your purchase is $16, did you want to add a small to that to round up to an even $20?) and FB helps keep people connected when you can’t see them in person.
A new exciting thing happened to me this weekend; I got to sign my first book for people when they bought it! I thought I’d be prepared for how exciting that would feel, but I really wasn’t. Every time someone brought our book to our table, I’d get that rush all over again. (And worry that I would mess up the signature, which I only did once and managed to play it off as intentional, thankfully!)
I want to thank all the people who came to see us, the other artists, the volunteers, and the organizers for making our first convention back such a good one.
Thank you to everyone who made it out, you reminded us after 2 years why we do all the things we do.
Update number two. The first one was at the beginning of August and honestly, there isn’t much of an update to give. Started out that in June, the first doctor told me I had carpal tunnel and an ulnar nerve compression. Then I saw my family doctor and he said that I had tendonitis, specifically tennis elbow, and possibly carpal tunnel.
Then I went to the specialist in Carpal tunnel. I did the test where they electrocute you and try to figure out which nerves are working. And at the time, he said that I had no carpal tunnel and he didn’t believe it was tendonitis, that it was myofasciitis.
I then have spent the past month trying to get an appointment with my doctor. He wanted to wait until he got the notes from the specialist. They got it last week. I got in contact with my doctor’s office and I was extended leave because I am still a lot of pain. Pretty much fingers to here hurts right now. And although physio is helping a lot, it’s not fast.
Fast forward to last week, when I went to my doctor’s office to talk to the nurse and to get things signed, I said I was really worried and needed an appointment with the doctor because this is getting ridiculous.
One person was telling me I didn’t have anything and the specialist that I didn’t have carpal tunnel and the nurse goes, “Whoa, no, no. I read the report. He says you have signs of carpal tunnel.”
I have no idea what’s going on, No idea whatsoever. Hopefully in the next week or so, my doctor will call me back, make an appointment, and we can figure this out. Because even WSIB and OHS are getting a little impatient. My work is wondering when I’m coming back. I would just like to heal and get better and get back to work.
I’m also getting a little antsy. I went from writing a thousand words a day up to like six thousand a week, to writing a thousand a month.
And that was really slow. I wrote the sereal story and even with my new ergonomic mini keyboard and everything, it’s… it’s… ah.. hard. Thankfully, the writing still flows out easily. It’s just the… The pain afterwards that is not much fun. So, unfortunately, the update is a non-update, but that’s what we have so far.
Hopefully, I’ll have more news soon and then we can proceed with an actual plan for getting better. That’s my hope. That’s what I want. I want to plan. I’d like plans, I like breaking plans, but in this case, I want to make a plan and stick to it. Hopefully I can start writing again and by the new year. That’s, that’s my big hope. If not, then I have to consider voice to text as a permanent solution and it sucks, but it’s better than nothing.
The other big thing that I’ve been doing is very slowly roasting, and with the help of my children and wife, packaging coffee. So, if you’re going to be at Ottawa Comic Con, we should have twelve flavours, including two that have never been in a convention before.
So that’s exciting. Hope to see you there. Hope that my next update is either by text or way more optimistic.