Fanny & Jane is having a THANKSGIVING SPECIAL!
We’re offering FREE SHIPPING on any order placed by Wednesday, November 18.
Just to go www.fannyandjane.com and click on SHOP. And if you have something special in mind that you don’t see in our shop, shoot us an email and we’ll see what we can do! At fannyandjanebakery@gmail.com.
I’m madly in love with this coffee. I picked it up at Trader Joe’s last week, as I am becoming more and more excited about the festive season approaching. And I fell in love at first sip. It tastes very Christmasy and I’m forcing myself to drink our OTHER (bor-ingggg) coffee in between the mornings when I have this Gingerbread coffee so that my mouth doesn’t become too adjusted to the delicious holiday flavors too soon.
Plus! Look at the little gingerbread man on the label. Adorable.
I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night to find one of these two pillow hogs in between us in bed. Mostly the red one. He is SUCH a daddy’s cat, if I may invent the phrase. He is smitten with his father, is blue until Kevin comes home every day, and would really rather I never touched him. But when his dad picks him up, forget it. He’s puddy. And he hogs my pillow.
My dear friend Meg gave me this amazing present for my birthday. A Fanny & Jane apron! She made it herself! It was the sweetest, most thoughtful gift. And she even made a little mistake on the first one she tried to make, so she brought that one along to give to Faryn! So sweet.
Kevin tried to snap a few shots of me wearing it yesterday morning, but we couldn’t get the lighting right so that you could see the logo well.
…and then I became a little exasperated with the process.
I have to run out the door to an appointment, but I wanted to pop on and say hello.
My days have been filled with lots of busy and sometimes lots of not-so-busy, but the time still passes and I use it up in all kinds of ways. I’m enjoying the baking and the business right now. Fanny & Jane is doing well so far this holiday season, but I hope that we’ll be doing much better as Thanksgiving and Christmas approach. I’ve had a few moments of worry and stress that this business is never going to get off the ground in the ways I really hope it can. I realize that might sound a little pessimistic, but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I feel unsure sometimes. In those moments, I tell myself that many people before us and many people after us have and will continue to build successful small businesses. I tell myself that if they can do it, we can do it. But sometimes, in a loud sea of fancy brands and options for consumers to choose from, it can feel overwhelming to try to carve out a little corner for yourself.
I also hope to set aside a bit more time to work on OTHER stuff soon. I haven’t been doing as much writing as I want to be doing, nor have I been focused on much besides baking, running this little company, and trying to get some exercise into my life every day. I suppose that’s good enough for now.
Anyway, you get the idea. I’ve always been 100% honest with all of you about where I am in this process. And although I’m still adoring having my time to myself and although I feel free and grateful to be so free, I still have concerns, worries and I’m still unsure about how it will all turn out.
At least I’m not showing up to that office every day anymore. I definitely feel as though I’ve made a huge step forward in my life, even if I’m not sure what the next few steps should be.
And I feel 29. The reality of that number has hit me a few times in the last few days. Realizing that my twenties are almost over. It’s pretty cool, actually. And I have more gray hair than every before.
I turn 29 tomorrow. How exciting. I feel like a real adult.
I just tried to write a blog entry about my day yesterday – a trip to the grocery store, a new dinner making experience, and an awesome new gift from my honey! – but my computer effed everything up and I’m about to lose my cool.
So in the interest of maintaining my sanity, and so that I can go for a walk and get some baking done, instead of staring at this computer screen all afternoon, I’m going to post photos of yesterday and be done with it.
I used this How To Cook Spaghetti Squash guide, and this brown sugar-glazed carrots recipe. Both dishes turned out pretty good – although I’m not sure I baked the squash for long enough. Still, a yummy, filling supper.
Kev got home from his overnight business trip to Miami carrying this huge box!! I let myself pretend it was a puppy for a few minutes. Then I unwrapped the very next best thing: a new, fancy standing mixeraaaAAAAAAHHHH! YES. This is going to change my life.
It’s a really nice one too. He did his research.
I stayed up late making two red velvet cakes, which were much more enjoyable to make with my new mixer. And Kevin crashed into bed, exhausted from his whirlwind trip, and hoping to get some sleep in preparation for the TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF IMPROV he’s about to do.
That’s right. He and his improv team, Tomahawk, are hosting a 24-hour improv festival that begins tonight and ends tomorrow at 8pm. I’m hoping to catch a show late tonight, and then maybe something tomorrow afternoon after they’ve all been awake for almost 36 hours and are probably going to be sub-humans. How could I miss out on that? As I said in an email to my good friend Keith, who is a member of Tomahawk, coming to see them in the last leg of this insanity will be Schadenfreude at its finest.
I came to bed late last night, around 3am, which has become my usual bedtime recently. Who knows. Maybe it’s a phase, maybe I’m my grandmother’s granddaughter. But that’s where my body clock is resting right now. And who am I to argue.
When I tried to climb into bed, though, I discovered there was no room!
The rest of the family had taken over.
Now if we could just add a dog to this bed.
One of the perks of my new lifestyle is that I find myself in different neighborhoods in New York at different times of the day – times when, before, I would have been busy entering data or answering phones at my old desk job. I love being out and about in New York City. It’s part of the reason I’ve lived here for over 11 years and don’t see myself moving anytime soon.
I often have to make deliveries for Fanny & Jane to different places in the city, and I used to squeeze them in during lunch breaks or before work, but now, making the deliveries is part of my job! My new job. Which is a great job, by the way.
So now I get to take my sweet time traveling around town when I make these deliveries. I’ve gotten to see lots of interesting office buildings I’d probably never otherwise visit (I was at the massive advertising agency, JWT, the other day. Their offices are enormous and stunning.), and I’ve gotten to take trips to lots of neighborhoods in which I don’t otherwise spend much time.
On Tuesday, I found myself right near Grand Central. The sun had just set, you know, at like 4:00pm (It’s such an adjustment, isn’t it? Every year!), and after I dropped off an order of 60 Red Velvet Cake Bites at a building nearby, I decided to venture into the Grand Central Market.
It’s a narrow marketplace inside Grand Central Station, filled with specialty meats, cheeses, breads, coffees, fruits, and sweets and it’s always been closed every other time I’ve walked by, making me very curious. Of course, I had to stop in.
Once inside, I was delighted. I found myself standing in what is essentially a busy and long hallway of gourmet food, most of which is way too expensive for my budget, but it was all nice to look at. The aromas alone were incredible. I walked around gazing at fancy cheeses and dreaming of a day when money is no object.
As if all this weren’t enough to make my afternoon special, I’d already had another adventure earlier in the day. I’d found myself on the west side of Manhattan just as the sun was setting. This is the perfect time of day to be in that neighborhood, as the light dances off the buildings and the river. I was making another delivery of Cake Bites to another fancy office building and when I walked out to head back to the bus, I looked up to see the High Line.
If you don’t live in New York, you might not know that the High Line is a brand new park just opened this summer, which runs along the west side of Manhattan, and is built onto old elevated train tracks that were unused and abandoned for years before someone decided to turn them into a park.
Many New Yorkers have already made their way up to the High Line by now, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Interestingly (to me, at least), when I first started college in 1998, my acting school studio was located right next to the train tracks that are now the High Line. I walked by it every day, and would often look up to it and wonder why it wasn’t being used. It was strange to be back in that neighborhood, which has changed SO DRAMATICALLY since I moved to New York.
I’d spent many years during many different phases of my life hanging out on those few blocks. I remember walking to that neighborhood for the very first time ever as a 17-year-old college Freshman, noticing how incredibly far away it felt from the rest of the city. When I first moved to New York, I was not used to walking the distances that you’re expected to walk in this town. I got used to it very quickly, however.
I also remember noticing how incredibly dingy and forgotten that west side ‘hood felt at the time. Then I thought about how I used to fill my car up at the gas station on the corner (during the ill-fated months that I had a car in the city), and how I used to walk through Chelsea Market, a fresh food marketplace that has since become famous for its wares, when it had just opened and there were only a few vendors inside.
I thought about how I’d walked up and down those blocks fat, skinny, broke, not broke, as an acting school student, as an employee of my former acting school, in the midst of severe depression, in the midst of getting better. I even remember exactly where I was standing on West 16th Street when I said the words aloud to myself, “I lost 100 pounds,” because I hadn’t yet, but I was practicing what it would feel like to be able, one day, to say that I had.
The point is, it’s a neighborhood very much a part of my having grown up, in a sense, in New York City. It was thrilling to see it alive with so many shops, restaurants and young, exciting companies, and of course, this beautiful elevated park that boasts rare views of the river, New Jersey and the rest of Manhattan, especially at sunset.
So I had to walk up to the High Line. And I’m glad I did. Even though I had other deliveries to make and part of my brain was tugging on me to be on my way and not stop and gawk at my surroundings.
But then I remembered! This is why I quit my job! So that my time is my own to do with what I please, so that I can enjoy my life and revel in being a young woman in the prime of her life in this amazing city. I would not have gotten to see this park at this particular time of day on this particularly balmy November afternoon, had I not quit my job and started a sweets company that allows me to travel around delivering sweets to hungry New Yorkers.
And that’s all there is to it. That alone is reason enough to believe that this transition has been the right move at this time in my life.
And of course I couldn’t help but become a little sappy and reflective about how far I’ve come. If you’d have told me 7 years ago, when I was filling up my little Honda at that gas station as an obese, miserable young lady trying to figure my way out of the mess of my life, that I’d one day be walking along these very streets in such a strong, positive, spiritually wealthy place, and working for my own small business, I’m not sure I would have believed you.
Here’s to progress. Neighborhoods change. And people do too.
