How Did Kitchen Nightmares And Gordon Ramsay Surface During A DIY Dog Mom Project Discussion?

I published a blog column yesterday about our decision to get back to our DIY Dog Mom Project roots. You can read about that here. Getting back to those roots isn't just limited to the DIY Dog Mom Projects that are created in the woodshop or the Bodacious DIY Dog Mom Project Workshop. It also involves what happens in our Bodacious kitchen.

Last year, after venturing down the path of making non-dog themed items, another item that got pushed down on my Bodacious To-Do List was creating more homemade dog treat recipes. For a while, I had been whipping up new creations every week.

I'll be the first to admit, expanding our horizons and making non-dog/pet-themed items seemed like a great idea, but then...

It got out of control.

I have no shame in admitting, we both lost focus a bit.

By the end of the last year, Lisa and I admitted during a conversation that we missed making all the great things that we used to like DIY Leash/Apparel Holders, DIY Dog Beds, DIY Dog Toy Boxes, creating new dog treat recipes, etc.

We actually had quite a few conversations about this last month. We compared the "expanding our horizons" mind frame with a few of our favorite eating venues in the past who lost their way and ended up going downhill.

At one point, I brought up the show 'Kitchen Nightmares' with Gordon Ramsay. We used to watch that show.

In one of the episodes, Gordon Ramsay visited a restaurant that had a menu consisting of pages and pages and pages of choices. When it came time to review the menu and what the restaurant had to offer, Gordon Ramsay told the owners to focus on what they're passionate about cooking. The recipes that take them back to their roots.

The gist of his reasoning was that you should stay focused. Instead of offering 500 things, only offer 50 and make those 50 things really, really great.

I applied that to our DIY Dog Mom Projects.

Sure, Lisa and I can make signs, wooden décor, etc. for every occasion and offer hundreds of non-dog/pet-themed items. However, that's kind of like the restaurant offering 20 pages of menu items.

We don't want to do that.

We missed making the dog and pet themed items and creating new homemade dog treat recipes.

So, we're taking Gordon Ramsay's advice.

Stick to what you're passionate about. Stick to what represents you. Stick to what you're best at doing. Get back to your roots.

As mentioned in yesterday's blog column, we're taking a couple weeks off from the woodshop and DIY Dog Mom Project Workshop to clean and organize things.

Then...

We're getting back to our DIY Dog Mom Project roots all the way around.

We're very excited about this.