04/09/2026
🥃 Sweet Tea with Katie 🥃
I swear it’s sweet tea and not bourbon. There’s just not an emoji for sweet tea. 🙄
I think I’ve hit my rock bottom of burnout. Was it burnout? I don’t know. I’ve heard it’s a multitude of things. I was severely anemic due to a uterine polyp - single little piece of tissue that made my life unlivable for two and a half years. My sanity failed because my brain didn’t get enough oxygen to work. Try to explain to someone you can’t comprehend two plus two equals four when you spent twenty years in data analytics and building reports and spreadsheets that would make your brain burst. I aced statistics. How the f could I not conceive a simple math problem? Cause that’s how our bodies work. Who knew something as simple as iron did all that.
Then I’ve had to unwind the antidepressant journey I was put on. I passed the big hurdle of coming off the clinical dose and what’s left is minimal. I haven’t pulled that little micro dose just yet because well moving.
Writing is cathartic for me so here goes. Some of this I’ve never said out loud, much less published on the internet but bandaids are better ripped off. The medical was only half the story. The places that put me were dark. They were extremely lonely, at times terrifying. Dixie Grace, as many of you know, was started on a dining room table. It grew because of each of YOU. Word of mouth. A community of misfits. It was organic. It wasn’t a marketing ploy, giveaways, trips, none of it. It was each of YOU. So when we grew like wildfire and we needed to expand, I took on that new building because we desperately needed it. We moved in January and I started getting sick in March. By May, I was already in a dark place. When I say dark, just know it was dark. I relied on my “corporate America” training which I swore I’d never do again but it’s all I could comprehend. 50k on marketing that produced no results for us.
That was the beginning of the black hole we fell in. I’ve always been able to pivot and make it happen. It’s what I’ve always done. Have you ever been so overcome with grief that the world around you is moving but you’re numb and completely frozen watching it? That’s how I lived everyday. It wasn’t grief though. Mine was anemia. The business was starting to fail. I was numb and frozen. I was lucky to shower and be able to breathe through taking one, much less trying to figure out how to regain traction. The world was continuing to move and all I could do was watch. It all continued to spiral. The bills. The responsibility. I was frozen watching it all.
We downsized to Millstadt. If one good thing came out of this, it’s that I fell in love with Millstadt. I love this town so much. It reminds me of slow country life. I grew up in a town in TN about 1k people smaller. It’s the pace. More than anything, it’s the people. Meeting so many of you has been a blessing you didn’t even know you gave me. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I look forward to getting you guys into the community we used to have around Dixie Grace. I’m sad I couldn’t pull it out of the hole while we were there.
Looking back, the downfall started in the expansion. Was it the economy? Maybe. Was it me being sick? Absolutely yes. Was it me reverting back to running a business that was worried about cash flow instead customers? Told you I reverted back to corporate America. That’s the heartbreaking part. Not being able to focus made me lose what I founded Dixie Grace on - serve the community and the people - the money takes care of itself. When I did something different, no matter the reason, it failed. Dixie Grace failed. I failed.
We can spin this any way, sideways even, it failed. We went on a ride around the sun.
You know what though? I’m thankful. I’m grateful. I got a lot of life lessons in this. Here’s what I believe more than anything - God didn’t give me Dixie Grace to fail. He didn’t bring me where I’m not supposed to go so if it means stripping away everything, literally, and building me from the ground up again - that’s the journey I’m going on. So here we are. Here I am. More lines. More wrinkles. More pounds. Starting with the ashes of what we once were. I failed a lot of people along the way. I am sorry, from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.
We’ve had orders go longer than they ever should take. We’ve had delays. We’ve had to fight in an unforgiving market driven by world politics and corporate greed. I became something I never wanted to be. So for those wondering why I fell off the face of the earth, how something so successful fell from grace, how everything was turned upside down for us - the answer is me. I have found humility I didn’t even know was possible but I’m here.
So now we begin again. From ashes. Redemption. I guess Dixie Grace was telling her story from the beginning when Where Rebellion Meets Redemption became our slogan. Who knew it would be here. In a pile of metaphoric ashes and literal mounds of debt in a really hard market wrapped up in an even worse economy for Small Business.
If you’re reading this, this is the story. I’ve heard so much random gossip about us and people guessing what happened. I am only able to bring Dixie Grace back because of each of YOU. If you want to support us, just shop with us. Share things we post. I’m not asking for sympathy in this post, I am telling you each what happened and I’m taking responsibility because at the end of the day, regardless of circumstances, the buck stops with me. Welcome to Small Business. No boards. No executives. No vacation homes. Just grit and grace.
I pray I can rebuild this thing y’all. I hope. I pray. Send some strength and grit our way. The basement is almost done and then we move back in. End of the storefront blowout coming soon.
XoxoX
Katie
