A Girl Can't Be Tough All The Time...

     As you grow older and become an adult you learn to be tough.  You learn to take things as they come and build a broad shoulders.  Thick skin.  When you become a parent you learn to be strong for your children and hold back the tears.  Well, this Mom, Wife and Sister just can't do that anymore.  Not this week, not next week or the next after that.

     Right now my life is TOTALLY insane.  First and foremost I am devastated.  Absolutely devastated right now because my sister is moving to North Dakota in two days.  I keep thinking it's not really going to happen.  It can't happen, she really isn't going to go is she?  As I'm typing this I'm trying hard to see the screen.  In my whole 36 years I have only lived away for my sister for a total of 5 months.  She is my complete and total best friend.  We know everything about each other.  Hair color, length, shoe size, clothing size, bra size, boyfriend's names in high school, we know each other's daily schedules.  I don't know what I'll do without her here.  I know that when you open her front door you have to turn the knob a certain way, and where certain things are kept that no one else would know.  I don't want someone else to know these tricks of the trade up in North Dakota.  I just don't want them to go.  Is it selfish?  Oh absolutely, but it's true.  I am family based.  I can't survive without them around.  Leon freaks out on me all of the time, but it's just the way I was raised.  I even dropped out of a full college scholarship in Music Ed because I was scared to move away from my family.  My family means everything to me.  This is killing me, ripping my heart out and it's going to take me a long time to heal.  Sure, we can visit.  They will come back and visit.  It just won't be the same.

     Next up, I'm going back to school.  A friend of mine graduated in May and as I sat through her graduation I cried to myself and thought what a failure I was.  How I had done nothing with myself.  I was smarter than this.  So now, I'm going back.  I have been trying my hardest to get back into the Information Technology field and without a degree no one is interested.  What everyone is saying is experience is not enough.  Apparently a self taught Systems Analyst is not on anyone's radar.  For now, I will work full time and go to school full time.  This semester I plan to take 12 credit hours but I have registered for some IT Classes of software programs I am already trained in.  They will basically be refresher courses so hopefully it will ease me back into the "back to school" phase.   I will hopefully be able to carry on the Cloud 9 CaKery business at least with some Scottsbluff Winter Farmer's Markets and a few special orders.  If I am unable to continue working and going to school, I may have to visit the option of working part time.  As of right now, I have no intention of slowing down, but my education will come first.  I am committed to my degree!

     Last, but certainly not least, Miss K.  She is taking her first trip to the actual Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children on August 25th.  Besides dealing with scheduling time off at work and making sure that everything is covered there, we have to be sure the kids are covered and things are handled here.  Animals, school schedules, two jobs for Leon and one for myself, school starts one week before for Lawrence, Kherington and myself, piano lessons to be rescheduled, medial records to find and send to the hospital, hope and pray that dance lessons don't start that week, arrange all of the final details with the local Shrine Temple.  SO much to do within a month.  Absolutely insane. 

     For Kherington's trip and her future trips to Shriner's we have set up a GOFUNDME account to help with any extra expenses above the Shrine Temple checks.  We would be absolutely lost without the Shriner's Hospitals and we will forever be grateful for the Shriner that we found who has helped us to get Kherington referred to Minnesota.  It is truly amazing.  The countdown is on. If you would like to check out Miss K's GOFUNDME page and donate to help, everything will go directly into her savings account at the Sugar Valley Credit Union.  If you don't want to donate online, you can message me for an address to mail it, I'll come pick it up, or you can take it directly to the bank and deposit it into her account anonymously.  You can click on the link below to check out her page.  

            http://www.gofundme.com/Miss-Ks-Shriner-Trip 


     So with ALL of this said, sometimes a girl just has to cry.  Sometimes, a girl has to shed a tear.   I'll be doing a lot of that the next few days, so if you see me I might just need a hug.  Tonight, I just needed some chat time with a friend and a little music to get all of these things off of my mind.  He really does help, even though he doesn't know it all the time, but he's one of the best at that job and I'm pretty thankful for that.  Friends tend to help in the end.

     

It all started with a boob cake...

Tonight I decided to write about...  My cupcake story.

So, if you are a friend of mine or my sister Katie, you have probably heard the word "cupcake" come out of our mouth at least once a day for the past oh...  month.  We have recently been preparing for what has been the the BIGGEST cupcake order our little kitchens have ever seen in this history of Cloud 9 CaKery.  What is this huge project you ask?  Well, let me tell you a "little" story. 

In 2010, Katie and I went to a wedding.  We saw a not so beautiful wedding cake/cupcake display and afterwards we discussed and thought that dang, we could really do better than that and maybe make a little money.  Later that fall, we took a cake decorating class at the college as something fun to do with Mom and Becky.  Our cakes weren't fabulous but they were fun.  We got to learn how to use the decorating tips, how to make the cakes more moist, what to use in frostings to make them color darker or lighter, etc.  It was something that we still use to this day.  After the class we made a couple of cakes for Christmas and for our kids' birthdays but nothing major. 

THEN, a friend of mine had posted that her husband was having a big birthday on Facebook.  She wanted a "boob" cake and wanted to know where to get one.  She was desperate she didn't know where to go.  No one was answering, everything was costly, nobody had a clue where to go.  So, I chimed in.  "I might be able to help but no promises, I've never done one before!"  Well, let the excitement begin.  I made that boob cake and the party was a success.  After that my brother-in-law wanted one and then my daughter's birthday came and she wanted a doll cake.  MAN, cakes were HARD!  I was going to have to start charging more and I needed help.  FAST. 

So, I recruited my sister.  It was originally her idea to even DO the cupcakes in the first place.  So I essentially stole her idea and ran with it, then asked her for help in getting it going off the ground. 

I had originally started calling the business Cutee Cakes.  When Katie joined up we decided to make the business more about both of us.  We thought that when you take a bite of your cupcakes you feel like you are on "Cloud 9" so then we added that.  Then we decided we didn't want to be a bakery because we weren't selling bread or muffins or cookies or anything.  We were a cakery!  Also, since the letters for both of our first names were in "cakery"  We spelled it like this...  "CaKery"  We capitalized and accented the C and K in CaKery so that people would recognize it was OUR business it was our idea.  That spring and summer we started doing special orders.  We did weddings and baby showers and birthday parties, everything you could think of.  Then, we took on a whole new adventure.

That fall Katie and I started selling cupcakes twice a month at the Scottsbluff Winter Farmer's Markets.  Holy cow.  Our cupcakes were an instant hit.  We were sweating from the beginning of each market for about an hour and a half in and then we would sell out or almost sell completely out and finally get to sit down.  People would not get enough of the cupcakes.  We would try different flavors every week. 

I think at the end of this past year we had invented 37 different flavors, we haven't had time to count how many new flavors we did this year.  We have done The Scottsbluff Winter Farmer's Market for the past three years.  It is always a great atmosphere around the market on Saturday's we enjoy the crowd. 

Then, Nebraska Life Magazine called.  We were like.. what the WHAT??!!  We did an amazing interview for them!  We had fun doing the pictures with Jessica and WE WERE IN A MAGAZINE!!

During the summer months, we usually take somewhat of a break but we take some special orders if time allows.  Once in a great while we did a summer downtown market, but the elements do not get along well with our cupcakes! 

The next big thing on our radar is The Cattleman's Ball of Nebraska.  About a year ago, a chef at The Steel Grill was mentioning that they were thinking about bidding out to help cater this event.  In conversation, I jokingly mentioned that they should hire out the dessert for the event and that Cloud 9 CaKery would cater.  Well, about 2 months ago guess who called??  Never did I ever think we would get this gig.  Was I scared?  HELL yes!  Did I think we could do it.  Oh yes, never a doubt in my mind have I thought so.  We only have a couple of speed bumps but we will just slow down the pace and get it done by deadline instead of early!

Now time for the sad part of the story.  In July, I will be losing my partner, my best friend, my sister.  Katie and her family will be moving out of state.  She may decide to carry part of Cloud 9 CaKery where she moves to and I fully intend to carry on my part of Cloud 9 CaKery as long as my time will allow.  I am intending to go back to college in the fall and without my partner here our orders may be harder to fulfill.  As of right now I intend to continue the Farmer's Markets in the fall because that really is my favorite part of our business.  If it gets to be too much because of my homework or schooling, obviously my education will come first, but this business is too dear to me to just drop. 

So, for now I'll keep it going.  It will not, however just be mine.  I am keeping it open to Katie and myself.  I owe a lot of the business to her and maybe someday she'll move back, we never know. 

Thank you everyone for your wonderful, amazing support of Cloud 9 CaKery over the past three years.  We appreciate all that you have done for all of us.  We will post pics of the cattleman's ball soon!!