Kind of an Important Update

Dear reader,

This weekend was astoundingly busy--after all, I drove to D.C. with 70 other members of my college to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity. But I sort of neglected to update you all on a kiiind of important even that happened this last Thursday:

I was let go from my job.

As you probably know, I work(ed) at a small cake shop here in central Kentucky, which only opened its doors this past January. The turnover for employees has been incredible, and I was a veteran, having worked nearly seven months (which, I realize, is not a very long period of time, but it is for a college student.)

The, erm, firing was actually fairly amiable. I did cry, but I felt sort of relieved. I can set myself in my boss' shoes and understand her thought process on this, even though I think she made a mistake--though I do not want to seem at all like I'm going to get all cocky about it.

Some her reasoning was quite faulty: for example, she held me responsible for tasks around the shop that I was not hired nor trained to do. I was the only jill-of-all-trades around the shop besides my boss, but I did not know the finer points of anything but my detailed fondant work. I guess I could be angry about this, but she didn't step on my toes too much.

Beyond that, she argued that I seemed spread too thin, and though I don't want to think she let me go out of the goodness of her heart, I appreciate this realization. She wants an employee who is more flexible. It's true--I've got classes and meetings to attend! But recall that I am otherwise nearly as flexible as I can be without totally snapping. I routinely stay until 3 am. In the summer, I regularly worked overtime. I can't get much more flexible, and if this is something to still call me out on, I laugh at its absurdity.

Since I am supposed to kind of keep track of my moods and thoughts with my depression, here are my thoughts regarding how the firing played out:

I'm a little proud of myself. I handled the situation with dignity, and was honest and assertive when I felt it appropriate. I cried, but nothing's wrong with crying. The work had been a huge part of my life, for better or worse, and I appreciate the paycheck. Mostly, though, I learned a lot. I learned I really, really, really like creating things, especially things that bring smiles, warm tummies, amaze the eyes, or all three. I learned distinct ways I would NOT want my business to progress, and ideas to inspire me. The firing was a slap in the face, certainly, but I managed to remain calm and reasonable. For that, I think I can be proud of myself.

P.S. I'm in the process of switching over from Celexa to Prozac, and so far I really, really like it. I am feeling glimpses of what I used to feel like fairly often, and it makes me very happy.

Potential Name: Brown Paper Bakery

Any feedback is welcome!

All in the details.

It's interesting. Although I am vague about my actual plans to start a bakery--in that, well, I'm in college, and I can't exactly start this very instant on painting the walls and working in quickbooks--I do get excited/obsessive about the details of the business. I need to name the place, first of all--I guess that's a bit of a big deal, right?! And in the meantime, I like to think about things as packaging design, and custom stamps, and making business cards.

It's all very fun, yet kind of tiresome. It's like... when I was imagining my future wedding in middle school. It was and exciting creative mental exercise for me, but as with anything I get too preoccupied with at an inappropriate period of my life, I start feeling weighed down by all that is in my head compared to so little that is concrete and before me. I feel an intense frustration when my mind is filled with so much passion and color as a Holi festival, and yet I feel powerless to create something with my own two hands. How can I channel this energy into something productive and creative?

I've thought about selling royal icing flowers on Etsy. I don't think it would exactly be wildly profitable, but it's a start. You know, I could even sell homemade marshmallow fondant! But, my mind remembers, I live in a dorm, and I certainly do not own a stand mixer. Yet!

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? What are good ways to channel my creative energy?

How do you effectively plan for events in the far-ish future? That's really the question I'm interested in. I have a hard time planning anything at all. Advice?

Time out for me.

Though I am hot and cold about my current place of employment, I naturally always enjoy the pay off. This time I bought a passel of books, and I am so pumped about them. This is not about my future business or creative endeavors directly, but, uh, my own personal self-improvement can only help those things, right?! Right.

So, I bought:

As per Lauren's suggestion on her guest post on APracticalWedding, I'm hoping this book will inspire and empower me. In gender studies, I come across a lot of depressing literature, and this, I hope, will be refreshing.

I bought Bluets, by Maggie Nelson, The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Second Sex (in a beautiful hardcover of the most recent translation) by Simone de Beauvoir, and Giovanni's Room, by James Baldwin, for a class. I am very excited. If only I had time to read anything beyond assignments for class!

Lessons From Real Life: Practicing the Golden Rule

In customer service, of course, of course, it's true to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But there's something about this I-You relationship (okay, you must read I and Thou by Martin Buber, as I am for my Theological Existentialism class) that is beyond general politeness: it's where we step off from our high horse and realize that perhaps other people's greatest desires are not so different from our own, and we should act in consideration of that.

For example, it's happened many times at work when someone orders a very expensive cake for their infant's first birthday, and is very picky and perhaps a little neurotic about the whole ordeal.

In the back of the shop, my boss will roll her eyes and remark about how absolutely selfish humanity is, or about these crazy new moms, or how everyone just expects her to do everything they want, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

At first I reacted in a similar, cynical fashion. But I've certainly tired of it. I can't help be realize, that, geez, these people just want to do something really nice for another person. And they want it done perfectly, in the best way possible, just because they want the best for this person.

It's idealistic, and I realize that many people ordering extraordinary cakes for painfully ordinary events perhaps are doing it for less than humble reasons. Nevertheless, something in me wants to think that people generally have good intentions--or perhaps the Biblical aphorism my mother always tells us (particularly when we're having to do chores!): Do everything without complaining or arguing. That, by itself, is a lesson from real life to remember.

Horchata!

I'm sure that a lot, a lot, a looot of the stuff I'd love to make at my shop are things I am personally obsessed with--and you know, why shouldn't they be?!

Well, anyway--I love Mexican food. In fact, I lived in the Yucatan for a semester in college, and I adored all the lime and habañero eaten as condiments with meals. And I loved, loved, loved drinking horchata with lunch. For those of you, readers, who are not familiar with this wonderful beverage, horchata may look like milk, but it's actually not milk at all. It a rice drink flavored with cinnamon, served cold. It's sweet, but like, say, chocolate milk, people still drink it alongside their meal, not as dessert. I love it ice cold with some spicy fish tacos, just like my host mom, Doña Carmita, made them. Mmm!

Lessons From Real Life: Taking Shortcuts

When I first started working at my current place of employment, I was hired as a baker. Now, at the time, I was incredibly nervous--sure, I make cakes from scratch a fair amount on my own time, but I've never been trained, and I've never done it professionally! I dreaded coming in to work, certain I would be fired within two weeks.

But, it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. We mostly use cake mixes. Really?! Really. And we pick them up from Wal-Mart, like practically anyone else.

I was appalled.

I took cake decorating classes at a Hobby Lobby last summer, and each week we had to bake, torte, and fill a small 8" cake. Someone asked if the cake should be made from scratch or if using a mix was okay, and my teacher said that she usually just uses the cheapest mix she can find--and not just for the purpose of teaching techniques to the class, but for cakes (wedding cakes, even) she makes for others.

I think this is a really, really common practice among small-time cake decorators--you know, the kind that may have a website (but usually not a storefront), the kind for whom cake decorating is a pseudo-artistic hobby like scrapbooking, and something that brings in "extra" income.

But! I don't want to be a small-time cake decorator, nor do I want to just work with cake. I was reading an article in a magazine for cake professionals once that counseled decorators that it's okay not to actually have any idea about how the cake comes together--that that is the job of someone who has gone to pastry school. It bothered me that there was a lack of interest in what made the cake good, as opposed to what superficially made the cake look good!

I don't want to seem all-knowing, but I don't think it's a lot to ask that I expect a cake I order from a bakery to be made from scratch, with care, and not from a mix I could also pick up from the store and bake myself. Taking shortcuts like these certainly save you time, but they chip away at the integrity of a business.