One Gumpaste Brick at a Time...

I used to have a blogging mantra plastered across my desktop.  It had tons of great advice about getting off your butt...or rather on your butt...and getting the posts out even when you don't feel like it.

But lately, I've been ignoring all that great wisdom.

Instead of obsessing over the unique visits Bake Lore has been getting, I've started pursuing my own health with a vengeance.  That has meant a conscious choice on my part to let most of the outlying areas of my life just not matter for a while. 

I started training for a 5K *eek!*  I started calorie counting. I gave up coffee - was totally caffeine free for 10 weeks, and now I'm actually enjoying my favorite beverage without being enslaved to it - awesome.  And I started drinking TONS of water.  Every day, without fail, nearly a gallon of the stuff has been going down the hatch. 

All that water has really helped clear my head.  I'm about to change the world, yet again.

Nobody said I'd have smooth sailing from concept to store front.  Heck, I don't know if I'll EVER get to the storefront.  I've had to stop and reevaluate a lot in this process, and it's happened again.

I have this little thing I like to call a career.  It's interesting, totally cooler than yours and it has nothing to do with cake.  ;)

The challenge for me is how to keep that so-called career slumping forward, while simultaneously continuing my hobby/passion/love/obsession/business of creating the most amazing cake in the universe.  It's a challenge.  It's a little overwhelming when I let myself ponder it.

But, what do you do when you're overwhelmed?  You divide and conquer.   You make lists, and you do one thing at a time.  This cake shop is no different.

If you'll recall, I was trying to marked nine million products at one time - everything from bread to cake pops.  But reality reminds me FREQUENTLY that the two of us just don't communicate all that well. I was doing too much, and I was starting to hate it. 

Kind of like choking on chocolate - it seemed like an awesome idea to take such an enormous bite.  It tasted great at the start, but now, even in your oxygen-deprived state, you realize - it was TOO MUCH!

That's when I gave my business the Heimlich and pared things down to just cake.

Now, even my more conservative approach is getting out of hand.  It's time to get real and make some changes.

Bake Lore will still be baking.  I'll still be doing weddings and showers and anniversaries.  But the official business plan is going to focus on the sugar work - the flowers, the characters, the pretty little decorations.

I'm going to try to market not just to individuals, but to bakeries themselves - the places that do the health code stuff so I don't have to, and need a little boost to their biz.

I'm going to try to get a good arsenal of flowers stocked up, then start an online shop here at Bake Lore, where people can buy my flowers and toppers and order custom work.

We're going to get that well in hand first - build it up - then we'll move on.  Who knows, maybe by the time I retire from whatever it is I do during the day, I'll have a cake empire to fall back on - but every empire has to be built one brick at a time. 

So here's to the first brick - the first REAL brick - the gum paste brick:). 

Thoughts?  Questions?  Comments?  Snide remarks?  I'm all ears.