😬 The Week An Emergency Dental Visit Tested My Systems
Edition 07 - Originally sent Sunday, September 20, 2026
Dates, events, and offers below were current that week.
THE WEEK THAT CANCELLED ITSELF
An ouchie tooth, a missed market, a business that ran just fine without me.
Turns out that's the whole point.
☕️ Live From The General
Back at my usual booth at The General this Sunday, and it feels like a full system reboot after the wild week I've had.
An unexpected tooth pulling earlier in the week threw everything sideways, grocery list included. Suddenly I couldn't eat anything crunchy (which is basically everything I eat), couldn't even drink out of my half-gallon water bottle straw, and ended up on an emergency late-night grocery run just to have some mushy foods I could slurp down.
Since crunchy has been off the table, so was a granola re-stock, which meant Saturday's South Bend Farmer's Market got skipped entirely. Slept in instead, and then slept in even more, since Allen was around to cover the Root + River shift at Alchemy while he's off the farmers market circuit this month. So this week I skipped the market, skipped my usual Counterspell breakfast and coffee, and skipped my Alchemy shift too.
A little out of sorts, but that's exactly why this squishy booth, this Dante breakfast sandwich and iced coffee, and this silly Sunday ritual felt like the right place to hit restart.
👀 What's Happening Around Town?
A couple of things worth putting on your calendar at Alchemy Healing Arts this week, both leaning into the same theme as my own week: actual, honest-to-goodness rest.
Acupressure for Vagus Nerve Reset on Wednesday, September 23rd at 4:00 PM ($20, 1 hour). When your system is stuck in high gear, it needs a signal that it's safe to come down. This workshop teaches acupressure points that support the body's own rest-and-recover response, which is useful for stress, tension, and sleep that won't come.
Sound Bath with Sky Apothecary: A Journey of Deep Rest and Resonance on Friday, September 25th at 6:30 PM ($35, 1 hour). Facilitated by Elyse Chilton of Sky Apothecary, this hour-long journey uses live flutes, handpans, singing bowls, chimes, and tongue drums tuned to healing frequencies to guide you into deep meditative relaxation. Bring a yoga mat, blanket, pillow, and anything else that helps you fully let go.
After the week I've had, I might just have to sign myself up for both.
🤠 Wrangling in the Wild
With a week this thrown off, I mostly stuck close to home base. No client backends to dig into, no on-site shifts. Just more of the quiet, unglamorous groundwork on my own site, the kind of thing that's easy to keep chipping away at even at half capacity.
Turns out that worked out fine. Everyone else's businesses were humming along just fine without me this week, and given the tooth situation, I'd have largely been out of commission anyway. Sometimes the calendar clears itself right when you need it to.
📝 The Un-Sexy Stuff That Actually Works
Here's an honest one: not every week goes to plan, and this one definitely didn't. An emergency tooth pulling isn't exactly a growth strategy, but it forced a version of "slow down" I wouldn't have chosen for myself.
There wasn't any client work left sitting on my plate this week, and there weren't any retail shifts to cover. Every business I work with was already running exactly the way it's supposed to, without me needing to be in the room. Instead of being pulled in a dozen directions, I had the space to just quietly chip away at my own site in the margins between grocery runs and recovery.
That's not luck. That's what solid systems actually look like: things that hold up whether or not the person who built them is in the room that week. This week was a good, if unplanned, reminder of that, and a nice bit of proof that the boring, behind-the-scenes work pays off in ways you don't always notice until you need it to.
🐴 Ride With Us
Fall officially starts this Tuesday, and it's got me thinking about the kind of question worth sitting with as the season turns: what would happen to your business if you had to step away for a week, unplanned, right now? Would things hold, or would everything "fall" apart? No pun intended (okay, fully intended 🤡).
Send me a note at Carrington@thewileyhaase.com and tell it to me straight, zero judgement. I'd genuinely love to hear where things stand for you.
👋 Until Next Sunday
That's Edition 07 in the books, and it turned out to be a good reminder wrapped in a rough week. Take the cue if you need it: build things that hold up even when you can't be the one holding them up.
And if you need one more reason to feel good this week: Notre Dame beat Michigan State last night, so at least one part of this stretch went exactly as hoped.
See you next Sunday.
