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new shoes?

March 13, 2010

I miss having money!

The bakery did very well over the holidays so my income didn’t change much at all in the months after I left my job. The bakery is still doing well, but it’s not the holiday season right now, which is always the most lucrative time of year for a bakery. So I’m now trying to make ends meet. And I miss having expendable income! Having a salary was fun. I didn’t care for everything that came with it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to missing it now that it’s gone. I was marveling the other day that there was once a time when I was receiving regular and relatively large sums of money (a paycheck) with complete predictability. That was nice.

Opening a business is a different animal than working at a job that gives you a salary.

I wouldn’t change anything, don’t get me wrong. I’m still loving running Fanny & Jane. I enjoy the baking very much, I enjoy all the aspects of it, really. But I’ve decided to get another job in addition to operating the bakery so that making ends meet is even easier. I wanna have fun with money again! I wanna buy shoes sometimes! Right now, a splurge feels irresponsible. If I had additional income, a splurge might feel deserved. I also wouldn’t feel so guilty about eating dinner out sometimes, or taking a few trips this year.

So, tonight, I went on an interview! The reason it was at night is because it was for a late night shift of – what else – baking! I interviewed and had a trial-run to be a part-time batter maker for another bakery. I had fun! Should they call to offer me the job, I don’t plan to take it because the pay is just not enough, the hours are a little nutty and it involves coming home very very late at night from a kind of sketchy section of Brooklyn, something I’m just not comfortable doing.

So the search for the part time job continues. But having the interview itself was a blast. I got to bake for an hour in a big kitchen, making gigantic batches of cake – batches much larger than we ever make for Fanny & Jane. I loved it and it reaffirmed for me how much I enjoy baking and also how much I enjoy being active while I’m working.

I’ve decided that the key to my getting this job is lifestyle compatibility. How compatible will the job be with my current lifestyle. It’s important to me that I don’t make any rushed choices and end up with a job I dislike, with hours that aren’t good for me, in a neighborhood that’s far away. That’s exactly the job I just came from last fall. So I’m focusing on interviewing for stuff that I can really see myself enjoying, doing well and something that will fit into the life I’m still building. The bakery remains a huge priority, obviously.

So let’s see what comes my way! My interview tonight was an exciting reminder of the possibilities available to me right now. Including the possibility of new pants or a new scarf.

Posted in Fanny & Jane, anything but the office, asking questions, bakeries and sweets shops, cooking and baking, healthy lifestyle, inspiration, the other side, trying new things | 2 Comments »

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mom, you’ll love this!

March 11, 2010

My dad has spent the last ten or more years doing a ton of genealogy research on our family and on the families in the town where my mom, my dad and I were all born, Quincy, Illinois. Just today he sent everyone a bunch of old photos online.

And along with lots of fascinating pictures of family members from my dad’s side, and lots of interesting scans of obituaries from old newspapers, there was this image. It’s a page from a book with photos of a grocery store, a store that was owned by my mother’s side of the family. I was surprised to see this among all the other photos, since there was no other information in my dad’s collection about my mom’s side of the family.

The first sentence on the page says, “E.F. Schullian’s Market was a popular grocery store at 20th and Chestnut for many years. In the 1902 photo seen at the right, Ed Schullian is seen on his store’s steps.” And then it goes on to describe how Ed Schullian continued to build onto the store, including adding a second story in 1908.

The book doesn’t say this, but 25 years after that second story was added, my grandmother would be born and would live her entire childhood on that very second floor!

When I saw my family in DC, my mom and grandma talked for a bit about my great grandmother, Ruth Morris’ store and the home that was above the store. My great grandma died when I was 7, so I remember her and interacted with her often when I was a little kid, even though she was well into her nineties by the time I was old enough to be aware. I’ve always known that my great grandmother owned a grocery store. The store and the house above it are part the story of this family.

The store had been passed down to Ruth by her dad, and by the Schullian family. Ruth then ran the store and lived with her children and their nanny, Helen, on the second floor.

When my mom went to see her grandmother as a little kid, she’d go over to the store, the same one in the picture. It was still open over sixty years after that photo of Ed Schullian was taken in 1902. My mom would spend time with her Grandmother Ruth Morris and with Helen, who a part of our family.

Seeing this picture and all the other pictures of my ancestors today was such a cool experience. I will have to thank my dad for sharing this stuff with me. It was interesting to reflect on the fact that my great great (?) grandfather built, owned and ran a successful grocery store, and passed it down to his children and grandchildren. Maybe there’s something to my getting into this bakery business and this life I’m building. Maybe it makes sense that I’m trying to work for myself and earn my living on my own terms, just the way my ancestors did.

Posted in Be., Fanny & Jane, inspiration, odds and ends, yikes | 1 Comment »

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a sunny monday!

March 8, 2010

I woke up this morning to see the sun streaming in our front door, and I instantly turned the TV on to check the temp. Mid-fifties and rising! I could not be happier about this.

It was a beautiful weekend here in NYC, sunny and warmer than it’s been in recent weeks, but to wake up on a Monday to bright blue skies and temps even warmer than the weekend – well, that’s my jam right there. I hate to think that I’m so impacted by the weather that I lose a solid two months at the beginning of every year to the doldrums, but that’s just the reality. This spring-like weather makes me ridiculously happy. I feel hopeful, I feel inspired, I am focused on what’s possible rather than on what needs to get done. It’s amazing how that works.

I plan to go for a walk/jog in the park in a few minutes, after I finish this post, finish the Fanny & Jane books (I do the books on Mondays) and throw on some exercise clothes. But when I woke up, I knew I couldn’t wait until I was finished with those tasks to get into the sunshine. So I had breakfast on our stoop.

The sun shines down onto the front of our house for most of the day, which is a lucky thing for a girl who likes to sit on her front stoop. It’s not even 60 degrees out there, but I had breakfast wearing only a tshirt and jeans. It was heavenly!

Fair trade coffee from Trader Joe’s…

And a spinach smoothie with banana, soy milk and flax seed.

And look who joined me for some sunbathing!

Chawser LOVES to hang out on the stoop with us when it’s warm out. We’ll open the door a bit and he’ll venture out at his own pace. We’ve (miraculously) trained him to only stay on the stoop, not to go off onto the driveway or the surrounding gardens. I’m sure if we weren’t out there to regulate him, he’d dart off in whatever direction, but he will sit right next to me for as long as I’ll let him. It was so nice to have a breakfast mate.

My other breakfast mates were two succulents that I have managed to make ill with my incredibly inept green thumb. I was hoping the sun would inspire them back to health. I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to kill these things!

Nothing whatsoever is perfect in my world and I have constant stresses and worries, but this day makes it all seem a little bit simpler. Also? Days like this are why I quit my job. Because I would wake up back then, and head into work, enjoying the heck out of my commute for its amazing views of the city from the Manhattan Bridge, for its ten-minute walk from the subway to the office through a bustling, energizing midtown Manhattan. And then I’d always feel my heart sink a little as I walked into the dark, gloomy office, knowing that I wouldn’t re-emerge for nine hours. And as much as I loved the salary, I always thought, This is not a reasonable trade-off for me. This is not good enough.

Today, even though I have a To Do list ten miles long, a budget to worry about, a bank account I’d love to add a few more zeros to, and an all-around imperfect life, I’m thrilled to get to go for a jog in the spring weather, on MY schedule, when I feel like it. Imperfection is perfect today.

Posted in Be., Fanny & Jane, anything but the office, cats and dogs and pets, good food that isn't sweet, healthy lifestyle, inspiration, just livin, odds and ends, running, sunshine, the other side, true love | 6 Comments »

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happiness is a state of mind

March 4, 2010

I’ve been thinking a lot about this entry today, the one I wrote the day I quit my job.

I’ve been thinking about how much has changed for me since September 1, 2009.

My life is no longer monotonous like it was back then.

And I’ve decided to start standing up to the people that have chosen to judge me.

I spend more time doing the things I love, like taking yoga class more often, going for walks and jogs when the mood strikes me, and spending more time with my friends.

I’ve also had to continue to make tough decisions, like taking a break from my beloved sketch comedy group because I know it’s the best thing for me right now. And dealing with the unnecessary guilt that accompanies a choice like that.

I’ve confronted incredible challenges with my new business, the bakery Fanny & Jane. And learned a lot about what it means to be a small business owner, someone who works for herself and makes her own schedule – things I dreamed about having before I had them, and things I sometimes now wish I could trade back in for just a day.

I’ve also been blessed with exciting success and progress on this company’s journey. Those little steps boost me up every day. And every time I get an email from someone who’s sampled and loved our stuff, or every time we land a new account, attract a new customer, or come up with a smart new marketing idea, I feel inspired and re-invigorated. I don’t have kids, but I can only imagine, as I’ve said before, that starting a new business probably feels, in some small (and much less significant) way, challenging, terrifying, exciting and rewarding in a similar fashion.

But more than all of that stuff, more than the lessons, the joys, the mornings of sleeping in, the evenings of staying out late, the days of eating lunch on my own schedule, more than the excitement and stress of being the captain of my own ship, I have learned one singular thing that stands above everything else:

That old job, that desk job that I blogged for months about leaving, and planned for weeks to escape from, did not make me happy. NOR did it make me unhappy.

Only I control my happiness. My circumstances do not.

I knew that all along, but it’s been really hammered home for me in these last several months during which I”ve been “living the dream,” so to speak.

I am just as occasionally grouchy and stressed out as I was then. I am just as occasionally joyful for no reason and excited about the little things as I was then. I have different stressors now, and I have different challenges. I struggle with different issues and different concerns. I also have new sources of contentment and some of the same old ones.

In essence: I am the exact same person. I just wear pajamas more often. I am just as happy, sad, confused, eager, frustrated, conflicted and optimistic as I always was.

Is that disappointing to hear? I hope not. It’s the truth. The truth is what we all know to be true – happiness is a state of mind.

Duh.

Posted in Be., Fanny & Jane, asking questions, daydream, healthy lifestyle, inspiration, just livin, odds and ends, the other side, update, yikes | 6 Comments »

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march

March 2, 2010

I watched the season finale of The Bachelor last night, after not having seen a moment of the show all season long. And while I watched, I uploaded some photos from our DC trip to this here blog so y’all could see what we did! Except then something went awry, the photos didn’t save, and those are two hours I can never get back. (Because of the photo debacle AND because of The Bachelor.)

We had a fantastic trip – it was ideal. Kevin and I met my mom, grandma and step dad at our hotel on Friday night. They’d flown in from Chicago for the weekend and we’d bus’d down from NYC, having just barely gotten out of the city in the midst of a crazy snowstorm. We had a blast traveling around the DC area together, seeing the sites, enjoying their bars and restaurants and stuffing ourselves into the back of cabs to get from place to place.

The Harvard Sailing Team show at The Kennedy Center was fantastic! There were over 500 people in our audience! I could not believe it – we’d certainly never performed for that large of a crowd before. It’s a whole different animal, doing a sketch comedy show for hundreds of people instead of the 60 that can fit into The PIT, the theater where we perform our weekly show in NYC. We had a great time and felt good about our performance.

It was the perfect little weekend trip and I was so glad to get to experience it with my family. It was a great way to spend time together – exploring another city in a whirlwind weekend.

But, of course, as soon as we sat down on the bus to head home, I started to feel like I was coming down with something. And now I have a full blown head and chest cold that has me feeling pretty miserable.

So I’m playing it safe and taking the week off from baking for Fanny & Jane. You can never be too careful or too clean when you work with food.

One of the best aspects of the DC trip was how I felt when I got back to New York, my ailment aside, of course. I was grateful to have had a weekend of drinking, eating and playing, but I also felt really ready to embrace Monday, March 1 with open arms.

I am not a winter person. I like the way the snow looks, I like the festive feeling of the holidays, but I really hate the cold and I really hate the often-dreariness and I really hate that it’s not spring or summer. Period. January and February are always difficult months for me. I don’t feel motivated, I sleep a lot, and I am drawn to heavy, fatty foods. I know I’m not the only person that experiences that and it’s no secret that the colder temps and the lack of sunshine does a real number on people every year. I’m definitely one of those people.

So March 1 is always a welcome date in my world. I know that I won’t wake up that morning to instantly warmer weather, chirping birds or blooming flowers, but it’s at least one step closer to those things.

I went to sleep early on Sunday night, exhausted from the busy weekend (during which I drank a lot of alcohol!), and feeling sickly, and so I decided to use that opportunity to get up early on Monday morning, something I’ve struggled with since I quit my job back in October. I set the alarm, made a list of the things I wanted to accomplish with my Monday, and made sure we had coffee to brew.

As much as I’m a natural night owl, I do find I get more accomplished and generally feel better about my productivity level when I get up earlier. So on Monday I woke up early, got my day underway and was able to get a lot of business stuff done. Plus, I even did my taxes! And went to the grocery store! Impressive, if I do say so myself. I also went for a jog in the balmy 47 degree weather and did a little yoga in the living room. It was a good day and I felt like it kicked my March off right.

This month also begins my three-month hiatus from Harvard Sailing Team, a decision I made a few weeks ago and blogged about here. As much as I’m going to miss the team and doing weekly shows with them, this was the right decision for my life right now.

Interestingly, I was looking at my planner on Sunday night, thinking about the week ahead, and I felt a bit of anxiety when I realized I didn’t have any obligations on Tuesday night OR on Saturday night, two nights during which I’ve historically been busy with HST. Having that time to myself (and to focus more on the business) during the upcoming three months is exactly why I decided to take this break, but when confronted with the reality of those extra hours, I felt a bit panicked. What am I going to do with that time? What if I’m lonely or bored or don’t have as much to get done as I thought I did? What if I feel isolated or like I don’t have any friends? You don’t have to come up with ways to spend your time when it’s already decided for you. This Tuesday/Saturday commitment has been a staple of my schedule for years and years. And I suddenly have that time back to myself for three months. WHO AM I NOW?!

And that, my friends, is exactly why I need this break. To find out what the hell I will do with that time when it’s totally up to me. It’s just two nights a week, but in many ways it’s much more than that for me. It takes up mental space and it gives me an excuse to put other things off. If there was something else in my life that I could have taken a hiatus from for three months in order to free up two nights a week without penalty, I would have. But there wasn’t anything else that would have allowed that right now. I’m lucky that this group of people is supportive and understanding enough to provide me this opportunity and that I’ll be able to go back  to it when the three months is over.

In the meantime, I’ve started to curb my anxiety about not having a standing Tuesday/Saturday evening activity. Maybe I’ll write more, maybe I’ll do nothing, maybe my business mindset with flourish and I’ll start coming up with brilliant ways to make millions. The possibilities are endless. My Aunt Lisa, a very wise lady, once told me, “Sometimes you have to leave a space in your life empty for a little while before you discover what will take its place.” Very true. She’s very smart. Then again, she also gets lost on her way home from Starbucks, so maybe I should take her advice with a grain of salt. ;) (Love you, Lise.)

Speaking of my Aunt Lisa, she gifted me these gorgeous flowers last week with a card that told me to “Break a leg!” at The Kennedy Center. I love them!!

Happy March, everybody.

Posted in Harvard Sailing Team, healthy lifestyle, inspiration, just livin, odds and ends, sleep | 6 Comments »

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