Happy 4th!

I know that I promised to record my first ever icing decorated cookie. The truth is that it takes awhile to finish them! I cut them out yesterday and put them aside for a decorating session today. I have been working on the icing today and there is a lot of drying time in between layers. I have no pictures as of yet.

I was really afraid to try my hand at the piping bag. While I am very adept at most things such as this, I do not have the steadiest of hands. I was really thinking that I would not be able to control the icing and draw straight lines. Well, I surprised myself and actually feel very comfortable piping! It feels so "professional"!

Surprising to me, the part that I am uncomfortable with is the icing. I realize that this is only the first attempt, but I thought that the flooding icing and piping icings I made matched colors very closely. When I used them though, they were very different shades. Being the perfectionist that I am, this bothered me. I wish I had someone to help me!



The day before, I baked little versions of my specialty cookies. I am really enjoying baking. It is so gratifying to me and that is such a good feeling. I'm hoping to bring these "tastes" to try to sell. I will be going to caterers and business that give gifts, such as lawyers and the like. Wish me luck!

Creative Baking

I've been busy researching. I am working on finding my style with this baking adventure that I am taking. All of my free time has been spent scouring the internet, hopping from blog to blog, taking in all of the styles of baking that are out there. I am in creativity overload! I simply can't believe how many talented people there are in the world.

I have gained so much inspiration in the past few days. It has been both enlightening and even a little overwhelming. I have always baked traditional cookies. This is no surprise. I am a traditional person. I make a mean chocolate chip cookie, and the most delicious giant ginger cookie. My peanut butter cookies with a Kiss in the center are to die for, so I am told. I also bake Rugelach that disappear before they are out of the oven ;)





Lately, I have been considering adding some different styles of cookies to my repertoire. I am very interested in learning the art of decorated sugar cookies. I am mesmerized by the beautiful colors, patterns and elegant styles that can be achieved. I think my husband is going to kill me though! If I try one more new craft...! These are the demons that us creative artistic people have to contend with ;) Our minds are always working.

Tomorrow, I will attempt my first batch of piped icing cutout cookies and I'm going to post a picture of the results no matter how it looks! This has the potential of being a very funny post, so I'd be sure to check back! I know it will be an awkward event. I've never used a piping bag before, but I am confident that I will master the icing. Let's see how long it will take. I have some beautiful ideas in my head. I can't wait until I am able to implement them.

2000 Cookies DONE!!!

If I can complete this order, I can take on anything! I never realized just how many cookies 2000 actually is! And better yet, where to put that many of anything! I am very lucky to have a fairly decent sized kitchen and yet, without a commercial baking setup, this order was quite a challenge! I really am proud of myself and it feels good.



Backing up... I took an order for 1000 bags of two cookies each. These cookies were to be given to each baseball player in our local baseball league. I had one week to plan, bake and package them all. My wonderful husband created the bag toppers and readied them for me to use. I baked more than I ever thought I could bake. I packaged and stapled more than I ever thought that I could staple! But I did it and I am done! I think that they look great and I got great feedback as well.



Most importantly, I am sure, now, that this is something that I want to go forward with. I love to bake and I never, not for one moment, got tired of the challenge. As a matter of fact, I feel disappointed that it is over. I am sad that I have no orders to fill! It felt wonderful to have a purpose and my children were so sweet and aware of my feelings of accomplishment. Jacob, my youngest, kept coming in to give me shoulder rubs and he even whispered how proud he was of me :) Then he would check for rejects!

I have opened an Etsy shop at www.batches.etsy.com for my cookies and would love it if you would stop by and make me a favorite. Keep in mind that I just opened it and will be doing much more work to make it more attractive and to add many more choices. I have a lot of photographing in the future days and weeks ahead and I will be getting a new logo designed when I can come up with an official name. (I've lost hours and hours of sleep trying to figure out THE name!) I just can't seem to find something that I love and that hasn't been taken. I will and then everything else will follow. Meanwhile, you can request any cookies you like. I will be happy to accommodate your order. I'll just post a custom order for you.

Have a sweet day!
Lisa

Some Progress and an Interview!

No pictures, just some quick comments. I am proud to say that I was featured on Apples For Poppy Anne, a wonderful blog. Erin interviewed me and I encourage you to go read a little bit about me as designer! It is fun! Thanks Erin, for your support!

I am also excited to say that I just got my first cookie order. I am presently very busy baking 2000 cookies for our local baseball league. I am putting together a "thank you" for each of the players. I am exhausted... I baked 18 batches of cookies today! It isn't the actual baking that is a problem. When you aren't set up with a commercial kitchen, where do you put 2000 cookies?!!! I'm working it out, though, and it feels great to accomplish this feat. I'll show some pictures as I get closer to packaging them.

Meanwhile, I have also entered some more of my new wrap bracelets in my Etsy shop. Please do take a look. Oh, I have a picture!

Operation Nice

Ok. How did I never come across the amazing blog Operation Nice? I am practically obsessed with being kind. My husband and I pride ourselves in our never ending quest to teach our children this very important quality. The first thing that people always tell me is how wonderfully kind my boys are.

In fact, here is my desktop page that I created using my favorite saying and favorite picture from a recent vacation in Hawaii.



I think that kindness (and being nice) is something that is done more for yourself than for the receiver of your good intentions. It makes me feel better about myself when I do an act of kindness, and then my interactions with others is always more genuine and enjoyable.

Just yesterday, my husband and I were getting bagels and the young women ahead of us was $1.20 short for her order. Ira gladly handed the girl the money and said to enjoy her lunch. It seems like the obvious thing to do, but acts like these seem to be so few and far between these days...at least where I live they are. I hope that people in other places are more supportive than here.

I have a very large chip on my shoulder about how people act where I live. My husband and I often feel so out of place where we live. The fast pace and "I got mine" mentality is driving us crazy. It really does bother us to the core. My theory is that it is so over populated here, that everyone is in eachother's personal space. People have become so worried about taking care of their own needs that they forget to be courteous.

We were in a car accident a year ago. Someone cut us off at a busy intersection and tried to cross in front of us to cross over two lanes and turn. Sorry we were in his way. It was rush hour. We got smashed on the side and couldn't drive out of everyone's way. Instead of anyone stopping to see if we were ok, everyone began to drive around us and form a new lane. There we were, in shock, and there were two lanes of traffic continuing on both sides of us like nothing happened. It was gut wrenching to me. All I could think about was that I had just been hit from behind a week ago and an old man was very hurt in the car behind us. I sat with him, held his hand, and tried to help him deal with his pain until the ambulance arrived 20 minutes later. I would not leave his side until I had to get out of the way for the help.

This way of living has taken a toll on my nerves. As soon as Jacob is done with school in three years, we are hoping to move to a place where there is a little more of what we, as a family need. Any suggestions? Feel free to suggest!

So I will be visiting Operation Nice for my "nice fix" regularly! I could really use it.

Feeling Better Today

I am feeling a bit better today. I am more open to some of the changes that I know I need to make. It is sometimes so scary to face change – at least it is for me. I was driving Jacob home from school today and I stopped to pick up an application to sub, or possibly teach, next year. He looked at me and said in a puzzled voice, "Why didn't you become a Home Ec. teacher, Mom? You do everything that you need to do to teach that. You cook and you sew and you knit and you know everything about that stuff." He's right. I do.

It has been 15 years since I worked outside the home. I have a Teaching Degree and a Master's Degree, but have only taught for two years when I was first out of college. That was 20 years ago. Everyone asks me why I don't teach. The answer is complicated.

Basically, I am a people pleaser. Growing up, I did what my parents thought I should do. I tried, always, to make them happy and proud. And they were very happy and very proud. The problem was that I never realized that I was not aware of what actually made me happy and proud. My parents never thought about what made me happy. They wanted my brother and I to be responsible, reliable adults and so they wanted us to go to college and get good jobs. I don't blame them, but this has greatly impacted who I am.

It wasn't until I started working, that I realized how out of place I continuously felt. I thought that it was my fault for being uncomfortable. No matter what I was doing, whether it was teaching or working in an office, I just felt miserable and uncomfortable inside. All I could think of was my urges to get out of there and create. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the creative projects I would do when I got home. Long story short, this eventually turned into an anxiety problem because I never felt whole inside.

I found myself on a quest to understand myself and over time, I began to realize that not everyone has to work in an office to be successful. There are choices to make and I began to realize that my need to create was not a problem, or character flaw. It was a personality trait. I looked back at my earliest memories and realized that everything that has stayed with me was always of me creating! I can remember making tissue paper flowers – the ones where you make a fan with the tissue and wrap the center with a pipe cleaner. Then you gently pull each layer apart. I even sprayed them with mom's perfume! We cut paper doll chains, too. When I was outside during recess, I made chains from clover flowers. I peeled the bark from sticks and braided every ponytail I could find. I even French braided all of my friends' hair before Prom. My hands had to create. The lightbulb went off! I need to create. I don't just do it because it is fun. It is who I am… what I was supposed to do.

My next quest, was to find a way to make a living doing what I like.

Part II tomorrow!

Deep Thought

My boys are all at a Mets game...Go Mets!!

So, I have a few hours of quiet. My mind is certainly not quiet lately. I'm afraid that this post might be long and a little dreary. I'm in need of a girlfriend and there is no one available...



I'll start on a positive note. I've photographed my bracelets and I am pleased with how they turned out. I have gotten my photo taking down pat and it is so much more gratifying. I know they are not perfect, but knowing what I am doing makes the process so much easier.
Having Picnik is also a great tool. I highly recommend it.



My next step with my pictures is to send them out to stores and try to do some power marketing. That sounds so ambitious, but for me, it is a stretch. It is very difficult for me to know how to market. It all seems so straight forward, but acting on it is a different story. All of this leads me to what is eating away at my heart.

It's funny; I have found so much comfort in reading Applesforpoppyanne. Erin has really struck a chord with me and I can't get enough of her writing. It is so comforting to me to see that there really are people in the world who are like me. Yet it is such a tease, because they are only in blogland. I have always been different from everyone around me. I think I am normal. I am normal. I just have old fashioned morals and ideas. I have passion about old fashioned things. I have always felt more comfortable with people who are older than I.

I love to knit and do craft. I cook and bake with passion. I take pride in a clean house and love order. I only like things with soul and take great joy in searching for special things from the past. I only like things with a story to them.

The people in my life don't connect with, or appreciate, anything that I do. I read Erin's passage today and just cried. I mourn for the one person who came into my life who shared all of these emotions with me. My husband's grandmother came into my life when I was 19. She stayed in my life until 2 years ago, when she unexpectedly passed. I had 24 special years with her. I still haven't really mourned. She was the only person, except my husband, who understood me and was everything I need in a person. She was soft, yet wild, and loving to the core. She was a caretaker and aware of everything good in the world. I could talk to her about anything. And she taught me to knit. When she passed, I took everything that was meaningful to me. I have her dear father's coat shears. She would tell me about her abundant coat collection during the Depression, all hand sewn by him. I have the pictures to prove it. I took her original knitting needles and a pair of tiny scissors that she used in her everyday. When she was alive, I cooked all of her recipes with her. I needed to be able to carry on the traditions of her Jewish cooking. It means so much to me to make her recipes today. No one else in the family cared to even pay attention. Sometimes, I'll feel like treating everyone to their favorite "momma" dishes and they just devour it and leave the table. Not so much as a thank you.

This is what is bothering me so much in my life right now. My boys are grown and I am searching so hard to find my niche again. It isn't working yet. I have no support or family, except for my mom, that is there for me. I love my boys to the end of the earth, but they look at me like I am from Mars! I am really lost, huh?

To top that off, my husband has been out of work for a very long time and I need to go back to work. I haven't worked outside of the home for 15 years. The work I did for 9 years before that lead me to an anxiety problem. My head is spinning and I don't know where to begin. I know that getting a job is first on the list, but in this economy, where do I look? Being happy at my work is overly important to me and that is a big problem. I need to address that tomorrow. This is getting too long and too revealing.