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I cried..
I cried because I was sad that I put so much work into my cakes. I loved what I did there. I don't regret one minute of my time because it made me a better cake decorator in the end. I know now that one person cannot be the baker, decorator, consultant, and delivery driver.
I cried because I felt that I had grown friendships with my brides and grooms that walked through the door. I felt that leaving them was almost as if I was betraying their trust.
I cried because I was going to miss the friends that I made while there, Monique, Shirley Mae, Jacinta, Vanessa, Mike, Bobby, Marlin, and Lilly.
Last year around thing time I was posting my goodbye to this blog hoping that I wouldn't have had to end it on such a sore note. I kept trying to invent new ways for me to talk about creating wedding cakes, but one can only do so much with icing and 20 hours per week.
In June of 2010 I decided that I was tired of not being with the one I love, so I put the effort in and got a job at a catering establishment in Maryland as their full time cake decorator. Little did I know that it wasn't exactly full time.. I guess working at Albertsons kept me spoiled thinking that hours were just made out of thin air. I stayed busy from July (when I arrived in Maryland) through the holiday season, but just as January 2nd hit.. my hours dropped from 45-50 per week to 10 . My ability to be creative with cakes had gone to almost a standstill and for that reason I had to stop posting to my blog.
I wasn't making character cakes anymore, I didn't have any fun stories to write about with interesting cakes, and lastly I didn't have any horror stories of customers that wanted me to write on a cake: "Happy Birthday Johnnie, Caren, Kacie, Lauren, Mary, & Frank" on an 8" double layer.
On the upside I was able to experiment with flavors that I had not played with before. For example: Kahlua caramel buttercream icing, Oreo cream filling, orange flavored cake, raspberry mousse, peanut butter mousse, and so many more. What was even better was that these new flavors I introduced began selling like hot cakes! I had so much more appreciation for other cake decorators for experimenting like I was. I began to love my job even more than when I first started.
Fast forward four months to Graduation (the start of the busy season).. I had done so much for my place of work like revamp certain pricing structures, adding many new flavors of filling and icings, introduce incentive offers on wedding cakes, and purchase new supplies to replace outdated ones. I felt like I had taken the initiative to make the cake section "mine". I was in control and I knew my numbers well. The busy season started off with a bang at graduation.. I had 32 cakes that week and only myself to decorate them. Not only was I doing the decorating, but also baking, having meetings with couples, and delivering the cakes. I kept myself busy during this time period pushing about 50+ hours per week.
Fast forward another six weeks and 3 back to back weeks of overnight shifts, I was burned. I wouldn't continue at this place and be able to keep my sanity. On my last week of overnight shifts I had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the night. At that time I realized that working this hard was too much for one person, and I decided that I couldn't continue to be abused at work for what I do. I gave my notice the following monday.
I cried because I felt that I had grown friendships with my brides and grooms that walked through the door. I felt that leaving them was almost as if I was betraying their trust.
I cried because I was going to miss the friends that I made while there, Monique, Shirley Mae, Jacinta, Vanessa, Mike, Bobby, Marlin, and Lilly.
And we miss you Aaron.
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