A million things on my mind

I just thought I'd share with you a glimpse into my crazy mind and all of the things I think about on a regular basis, usually all at one time. No wonder I'm exhausted.

1. I sure hope my pie turned out good this week. I made two, and sold them both at the market today. I baked them longer than I had been baking them, and to ensure that the crust and crumb topping didn't get too brown, I started off by covering the tops with aluminum foil for about 15 minutes. I also used a wooden skewer to test the doneness of the apples once I thought the pies should have been done. This seemed to be a good test, but honestly, without knowing how the firm apples in last week's icky pie would have felt, it's hard to know whether or not they were soft enough this time. I can only hope for the best.

2. I love my customers. They really make my day just by coming back week after week, telling me how much they like what I produce. It puts a smile on my face, and skip in my step.

3. What am I going to do in the off-season? I barely have enough time to go to my regular day-job, bake in my spare time, and play with my kid and take care of my house, so when am I going to have the time to figure this out? But it's coming quickly. The market ends at the end of September, and I would like to be able to confidently tell my customers what to expect from me in the off season. I did try to contact the local Methodist church. I'm currently awaiting a return call, but I'm not hopeful. I have two other places in my area to contact that have commercial kitchens. I'm not sure if either would be willing to work out a deal with me, but I'll never know unless I try. Then part of me wonders if I shouldn't just be investigating how much it would cost to turn a room in my basement into a commercial kitchen. That would save me rent, plus I'd have my own equipment that I could maybe someday move to a store front if I ever get that far. By having the kitchen in my home, I'd be able to bake whenever I want and not have to drive to work, which is convenient. In trying to rent time and space in a commercial kitchen, I'm envisioning that I would have to bake at times that may not work for me, like wee hours of the morning. But what if it's going to cost me $50,000 to set up a kitchen in my basement? How much would it cost me to build a store front bakery in a leased space? Would it be $100,000? More? I'm not sure. But say it was $100,000. If I'm going to the trouble of half that expense to build it in my house, why not go the extra mile and do it for real where I can actually serve customers, rather than from my home where I'd likely have to deliver or mail my goodies to my customers? Would my neighborhood even allow me to have a commercial kitchen in my home? Would it allow me to have customers come to my house to pick up orders?

4. Why do sales fluctuate so much? I can't believe that I sold out of my chocolate chip snowballs by 3:45 p.m. today. In most prior weeks, these sell slowly, and I'm usually stressing about whether I'll have a bunch to take home or not. But in addition to selling out of them early, I still had probably 5 people ask me for them after that. So had I made a double-batch, I think they would have all sold. On the flip side, I only sold 6 of my Squish Monsters, out of the 14 I had made. These usually sell out each week without any trouble. What's up with that?

5. I think next week I'm going to try a peanut butter cup Rice Krispy treat. I'm doing a test run tomorrow; if it goes well, look for these next week.

6. I hope I have enough energy to get up early and go for a walk/jog. I haven't exercised in over a week, and it's bringing me down. I have to make the time. Tomorrow is the day!

7. Somehow we got done packing up at the market, and then unpacking everything at home, much quicker than we had been. I was done and ready to relax by 9:00 p.m. That was fantastic. I hope we can keep that up in the weeks to come.