Pink stars and chocolate chips

Since you're probably visiting here from Facebook, you probably have already seen the pictures of my final cake, but I'm glad to have this blog post to share all of my feelings about the whole experience. 

It's definitely bittersweet. But I do feel a lot more at peace with it than I thought I would. As I put my last "business" cake in the oven, I felt excited to roll out fondant, to color frosting, to trim cake layers, to fill the cake with pink frosting, and to decorate and write on such a fun cake. That hasn't happened in quite some time.

There is something about stars I have always loved. I think it's their precise corners and the perfect angles that are between those corners. Punching stars out of fondant was so fun, and the little ones were so adorable! I just loved them! 

Through my little bit of work with fondant (and cake decorating in general), I developed a new appreciation for my art skills. I was always an "artist" when I was younger... Painting, drawing, sketching. Somewhere, I lost all interest in it. I think it was somewhere in the dirt and bugs and sports that it got pushed to the side. With this particular cake, I got to create my own clouds and a moon, which I free-hand cut with a knife once I rolled out the fondant. It's been really fun embracing my inner artist, and I will definitely miss that.

I also had a lot of fun photographing small details of this cake.

And I will be completely honest... I placed this pink star here purposely, and I photographed it this way on purpose as well. I wanted a little "sign" that only I knew about that would reveal the blatant secret on the inside of the cake subtly on the outside, but I would be willing to bet no one noticed. Ahhh, the creative license of a cake decorator!

I got a video and pictures sent to me pretty much as soon as the cake was cut. It was so cool to see the video, and I am thankful to have such great pictures of everything to keep for myself. So thank you to Brandon and Karissa for letting me be so public with their cake and for helping me fully enjoy my final cake experience. It was truly fun the whole way through-- I didn't stress, I didn't worry, and I was excited throughout the whole process. It was different. And I think it was the perfect ending to my cake career. Although it isn't the final end, I'm officially closing this chapter (with a June 2015 special order I have agreed to for my favorite future sister-in-law!) and am anxious for the things that I have planned for myself over the next year.

That being said... This year, I'm going to (*SURPRISE*) continue being a baker. I've been called "The Cake Lady" among many, and I think I have conquered the cake world (well, at least conquered it enough to be pleased with myself). I have perfect recipes, all of which I have adapted somehow to my own liking, and I plan to keep them locked up and secret so that I will always have them as go-to's. I'm not even sure Matt knows where they are! What I want to accomplish is expertise in other aspects of baking. If you remember, I tried the pie world, and yes, that was fun, but there are so many things on my list of things to try. I have breads, pastries, bagels, donuts, crisps/cobblers, and tarts just to name a few. And of course, I would love to combine my new hobby of photography with my baking adventures. 

I have been meticulously learning so much about my camera and specifically food photography. On our snow day last week, I baked a batch of chocolate/cinnamon chip cookies specifically for photographing (ok... We ate them, too). I played with aperture and depth of field to create exactly what I was looking for when I decided I wanted a "good camera." I know they're not perfect, but I'm learning, and that's something I am having a lot of fun with. 

My hope is that I can combine my new hobby with my already developed skill to continue to challenge myself. I'm always trying to make myself better, and I feel this is a way I can do that while still continuing to share my love of baking with the world. It makes me happy to bake. It makes me happy to see people smile when they taste my creations. Baking is my science away from work... It's precise. It's exact. It genuinely relaxes me to bake for pleasure.

So my challenge to myself is to try at least one new recipe each month (starting in March-- this move is going to put a bit of a damper on the kitchen!), and my challenge to YOU is to hold me accountable. I will share my photos with all of my readers, and lucky for my coworkers, I will share my results with them (if they make it past my husband). 

Thank you all, again, for the hundredth time, for all of your support. I am lucky beyond belief to have such amazing people who want to see me happy and who are going to genuinely miss my cakes. I'm not sad, I'm excited, and I hope you are excited to adventure right along with me!

Lucky Duck Cakes

I've been writing this entry for awhile now... Part of it in my head, part of it on the computer, part of it on sticky notes at work... Just jotting down ideas about how to put this into words to accurately represent my feelings on the whole matter. 

It's hard for me to tell the world that I'll be doing my last cake. I'm not sure why-- I don't owe the world anything at all. Maybe it feels like I'm quitting or that I'm letting down my friends, family, and customers by saying that I'm done... And these are just some of the feelings I've been dealing with since I was honest with myself about my future with LDC.

When I put cakes on hold in May and June of 2013 to focus on the wedding, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I didn't have to worry about stocking my cabinets with ingredients, making sure I had enough boxes and cake boards to fulfill orders, or being creative all while simultaneously trying to finish all the crazy things that came along with the last month of wedding planning. It was great! And I was looking forward to picking things back up in July.

Except that when July came, I wasn't as excited as I wanted to be, hoped I would be, or thought I should be about this business that I was running all on my own. I did our good friends' Mike and Jess's wedding at the end of July, and while I absolutely loved doing it for them, I realized just how stressful it is to put someone's wedding into your own hands. Party cakes are a completely different animal, but still carry some stress and worry. 

I can't tell you a single cake or cupcake order I've ever done that I didn't worry about a little bit. And I can tell you a whole slew of them that I lost sleep over. It is always worth it when I see someone's satisfaction or excitement over something I've created, but I realized that the final opinion from my customer wasn't outweighing the work it took to get there anymore. I had to say something to somebody, anybody, because it was eating away at me inside.

Of course, I took to saying something to Matt. I went into this whole big explanation, I'm sure that I cried, I probably rambled a bit, stumbled over my words, but when I was finally done talking, all that Matt said was "ok, so quit." And when I mentioned it to my girlfriends at work, they said the same thing. I started realizing that the only person who was going to give me a hard time about this was myself. 

I guess this is the point where someone reading this might think "ok, so what's the big deal? If you're the only person who cares, why make this long post about it?"

The answer is because I've taken this whole situation as a concrete realization that our lives are changing. I started this as a hobby while Matt was finishing school. It kept me busy, it was fun, it brought in some extra money, and was incredibly rewarding. At some point, my life shifted. I now get to spend a lot of time with my husband, we have developed several similar interests, we work more as a team than we ever have before, and doing this business on the side was taking away from all of that. And yes, we do want to start a family someday. And that will also take work and require time and more working as a team. It's not about me anymore. It's about US (and future, mini-USes). 

So there you have it, folks. Will I never bake again? Of course not. I love baking! Will I yell and scream at someone who asks me to do a cake or cupcakes for them? Of course not. I would still love to do (small) things for those I am close to... But gone are the days of advertising, of promoting, and of getting the LDC name out there. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll come back to it, and maybe I won't. But I know that if I do, if I choose to because it feels right again, I will have an unending supply of supportive friends, family, and client base who will welcome me back with open arms. It's those same people I am confident are applauding me right now for being honest with myself and for seeing life as a 28 year old who loves her day job and her husband should: it's time to move on and work toward the future. 

Despite as cliche as it might be to present a motivational quote to end this, the following words really don't do my feelings justice. This path of personal development I'm on with Matt has opened my eyes to possibilities I probably couldn't see had I not conquered the small business world myself and tested my abilities. 

“I know sometimes it's scary to think that you might do the wrong thing. It's terrifying to imagine wasting your 'one shot.' But let me assure you, nothing you do will be wasted. Every decision you make, every path you take, has the ability to contribute something you need to succeed at your dream.” 
-- Jon Acuff, Quitter

This was never my dream, and it's time to start working towards what is. Thank you all, so very much, for everything over the past 3 years. I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am for the hundreds of opportunities you've all given me to shine and allow myself to excel at a talent I can hold in my back pocket for when I need it again. I will be doing my last cake, a gender reveal cake for my friends from college, on January 18th. My friends know I would like lots of pictures to showcase this last shabang, so please check back to see the results.

Thank you again. You are the best fans.

2014

It would be pretty rude of me to skip right to 2014 without officially acknowledging the end of 2013, but I'm going to do it anyway. If you know us at all, you know how important 2013 was to us, so we don't need to touch on the details here. Just know that this Christmas was wonderful, just as all of our past Christmases have been. It was just a little more special sharing the same last name this year. 

If we are friends on Facebook, you also know I have been taking some pictures with my new camera. I upgraded from my point-and-shoot digital camera (that I actually kind of stopped using since I got the iPhone) and went with a Nikon my photographer friend helped me pick out (shoutout to Jim Coarse Photography). I spent my first week or so learning as much as I could about its abilities, and I think I've done a pretty good job of finding some really cool features. I'm excited to be able to take pictures of more things (food, people, eventual babies, holidays, parties) and hope that I can get good enough that it becomes second nature to me (I'm still a little wobbly and do a lot of the "ok, wait! Hold that right there!" type of thing). 

If you didn't see the Holiday Montage that was my collection of Christmas photos, here was one of my favorites that I took just a couple days after I got my camera. I figured I would start with something I was good at making look great in person look just as good in a photograph!

Now, onto the celebrations!

We've never been known to be party animals or do anything too fancy, so when we find friends who want to have a relaxing, fun night celebrating, we say "HELL YES" and embrace the board games and sweatpants. We did, however, start the night out a little bit fancy with a dinner at Mile High with some surf & turf. I had filet, and it was deeeeelish. 

These are our friends Tony and Colleen. Tony and Matt have been friends since childhood, and it's an added bonus that Colleen is really great!

After dinner, we quickly (and I mean within minutes) all changed into sweats and slippers, ate some snacks, drank some beer, and played Scrabble and Pictionary. 

And then, we had this lovely dessert that Colleen brought us! Mousse!

We rang in 2014 in style with some party hats, of course...

...and some champagne!

And, right after midnight, Matt was able to indulge in a donut, which he gave up for 2013. He loved every second of it.

Right after this, Matt declared he is giving up donuts again for 2014 along with pretzels, cookies, and Pop-Tarts (which we do not buy, but which he has been consuming lately during work hours because of their abundant presence, haha). We are both giving up ice cream and frozen yogurt (oh, Kiwi, how I will miss you).

This year, we have some pretty cool things happening. Of course, each of these will be documented accordingly on the blog in detail, but just to preface you, this is just a list of some of the things we have going on:

1. In February, the Colemans are paying a visit to PA! Although they aren't coming specifically to see us, we are hoping to get a day or so out of them so we can see our little nephew who has grown so much since we last saw him in June.

2. In March, we will be moving to a new townhouse in West Chester! We will still be renting since buying turned out to be a little scarier than we thought it was going to be, haha. Same(ish) area, but bigger space, another room, another bathroom, and a WASHER/DRYER! I'm so excited to stop buying rolls of quarters!

3. At the end of April, we will be traveling to Vegas for a leadership convention and then extending our vacation to make a full 10-day trip of the west. Places to visit include the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, and our favorite Utah residents! We will be road-tripping most of the trip, which we really enjoy doing.

4. We will celebrate our first anniversary, which is part of the celebration that goes along with the trip out west. We are going to combine the two rather than take another vacation in June.

5. Matt and I are both very committed to bettering ourselves. If you haven't noticed, Matt is all about personal development lately and it is absolutely amazing. He has morphed into a completely different man than the one I married, but it is 100% ok with me. His excitement for our future is so contagious, and I've been developing myself right along side him these past few weeks. It's incredible the things we've discovered about ourselves and our friends, and we hope to make 2014 just as great as 2013 but in different ways.

6. There is news coming regarding Lucky Duck Cakes, which will most likely be the next post. Look for that one next week-ish...

I know there are several other things we have lined up, but you'll have to stay tuned to find out what they are!

I will leave you with my favorite picture from last night. Right after we poured our champagne, Matt quickly set his glass down to run to the bathroom right before the ball dropped (I was yelling his name at 11:59 to hurry up!). He didn't even try to stage this, but I am so glad I glanced over and saw this. It was the perfect setting to end our amazing year (in the literally last 30 seconds of it), and it almost brought me to tears photographing it, since the moment only lasted a few seconds. 

Thanks, 2013. It's been real.