More grand plans

My deposit did not come in today because, I assume, I made the change on a Sunday. No biggie. I can wait another day. I have to admit that I was excited to work through all of this mess but I will survive.

The more I think about what I will do with the money, a few thoughts occur to me. One is that I need to go back to school. Don't judge me just yet - I know I owe more than my life to students loans but I have a plan.

My culinary school did not teach us about food purchasing and cost control. Apparently we pastry chefs don't need to learn anything but buttercream. For $35,000 I should have learned far more! Anyway, my point is that there is a class for this at my local community college starting Monday. If I take six units this semester then my student loan payments stop as do the interest which is 6.8%. I can continue to make payments interest-free.

It is a win-win. I can save some cash on the interest in exchange for filling in the gaps in my education. A valuable gap, too. How can I run a bakery if I don't even know how to properly buy for my shop? My small list of ingredients for home is fine but I really need to know what I am doing on a larger scale.

I have been working on a cake for most of my day today and as I make each recipe I think about how rewarding it's going to be when I can create in my own shop. I imagine the buckets of colored fondant lined up neatly along the wall. I can see the gleaming steel workbenches, the Hobart mixer, still ovens, convection ovens, piles of piping bags filled with brightly colored buttercream, and truckloads of people coming in to buy our cakes - it's invigorating.

Working from home can be convenient but there are days when I've only spoken to the cat, eaten nothing but cake tops and viewed the sun exclusively from the kitchen window. It's a pathetic existence.

All this work, this stress, this determination will pay off; I know it will.