The Baking Job

Today was the farmers market & the weather was gorgeous . I got all my baking done last night and was in bed by like 11:30. It wasn't 10:30 like I really wanted it to be, but then again, it wasn't 2:30 either... I got 18 pies done, I would have done a few more, but I have been just buying my pie tins from Wally World (I know... the evil empire...and WAY too expensive, but convenient), and they were OUT of pie tins. So I went to the local grocery to buy and they only had a few (for almost twice the price of the evil empire, I might add), so I got what they had and that left me with only 18 pie tins to utilize. I need to order some from a supply company...WAY cheaper. SO anyway.... I got my 18 pies done, along with banana bread, banana nut bread, apple dumplings, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin bread, muffins, coffee cakes, & scones. #4 didn't cooperate at first, but then in the evening slept for like 5 hours straight!! Of course then he didn't want to sleep when I finally got to go to bed, but we made it through. We sold all but a plate of cookies, some scones, and some dumplings, and we traded away the cookies to a fellow vendor for some salad tomatoes, which were eaten by #1 before we made it home. Its a bit of a boost to the family income. Now if we could find about 5-6 more "jobs" like that then we would be set with out working for someone else. The problem with the market is that it only runs from the end of May to the end of October, so thats pretty much when we can count on that income. I do get orders sporadically throughout the fall and into early winter, but my sales drop off DRAMATICALLY after Christmas. I get quite a few pie orders at Thanksgiving and a few at Christmas, but then people hit January and start setting New Years resolutions and they want to start losing weight....yada, yada, yada.... it kills sales. I should maybe look into a Valentines special for a heart cookie bouquet...or something. Send me your ideas.... or click some ads.... or both.... Also, I added a search engine to my window...look up at the top right of your screen. I ask the favor of you using it just once before you leave to generate some traffic...

Court

Okay, so I have a few minutes while my chunky baby is nursing. So today began with enough on our plate as it was... baking all day, and court for #1(I will refer to my children from now on as #1 - #4 for birth order, the girl is #3). But my boys couldn't let me off the hook that easy so to add to it, they missed the bus. So now I have to get #3 & #4 out of bed to take #1 & #2 to school, and then have #1 to court by like 8:45. And to make it really interesting I had already put stuff in the oven, so we had to wait for that to finish before leaving. I ended up just keeping #1 out of school until after court to keep it simple, so I just had to drop off #2 at his school. In the end we had enough time after dropping off #2 to run to Wal-mart to get some essentials for baking today, and then to McDonalds to get Mama some coffee.

Court today was...well...somewhat uneventful. I couldn't get anyone to keep #3 while we went to court, so she went with us (wasn't that fun!) She behaved for the most part, but got hungry and bored so she was quite fidgety. They tried to process #1 with a guilty plea and court supervision, but dear Mama wouldn't hear of it. This was a stupid ticket and we are going to fight it. So we entered a not guilty plea and will be scheduled for a bench trial, which just means there is no jury, just a judge. We are hoping that the trainee deputy won't even show up. Then the ticket would be dropped and we can get on with our lives. I will keep you all posted as to how that goes.

So #4 is now sleeping and I must get on with my baking if I am to get it done today. I certainly don't want to be up all night with a hot oven. Happy day to you!

Starting to get the hang of it...

Ok, I think I am figuring things out. I added AdSense to my blog, so if anyone wants to help me out, please click away! So I thought I would add tomorrows blog tonite since tomorrow will be a pretty full day. I have to take my 16 year old son to court tomorrow for a bogus ticket he got in an accident that he was in. He lost control of his Pathfinder (1987, shakes a lot when shifting) and it veered off the road and hit a parked pick up which in turn hit a parked motor home. He was going 25 miles per hour as he had just turned onto this road. The first officer on the scene was the dad of one of his friends and told him that speed was not a factor in this accident. Well, the other officer that showed up was training and she finished filling out the paper work for the accident and decided she needed to issue a ticket (...for practice?? I don't know...). So she gives him a ticket for Failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident. Now come on! He was going 25 freaking miles per hour! And if he had hit the brakes he would have probably rolled the vehicle when it hit the curb! (OH boy! More papers to fill out!) So we have to go plead our case...I hope that the officer doesn't even show up, it would make it easier on all of us...

After I get done with the ridiculous trip to court I have baking to do. I run a home bakery with help from my son and every Saturday from 8:30 - 2:00 is the local farmers market that we have a booth at. SO every Friday we bake about 20-25 pies, cookies, scones, muffins, coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, brownies, sweet breads, pound cakes, apple dumplings... a LOT of calories! It is a lot of work, but really helps out the family income. We sometimes do the market on Tuesday evenings also, but about half of the baking that we do for Saturday.

I will try and make it online sometime tomorrow and let you all know how court went. FUN, FUN!

Welcome to my Blog!

I never would have imagined having a blog. Now I do. So we will see if I have enough to fill 'er up! My name is Sarah. I have 4 beautiful children with my husband J. The only pets that we have at this point is a shark and two fish of unknown species. We live in rural Illinois and are trying to make our home and family more "country-fied" (can that be a word??). This blog will kinda give you a window into our adventure in trying to do that... can't be too hard, can it?