waiting for the good things.

it is 9:30 and here i am sitting daydreaming about being anywhere but here in archbold, ohio. i just found out that i am getting an extended christmas break so i don't have to go back until the 5th. while i'm excited that i'll be home for a few more days, part of me wants to go somewhere else. i feel like i'm just sitting here waiting for things to happen. though today was wonderful since i got to be reunited with some great friends. i just wish it was for a longer time. so now i wait again until i can be with more great friends. thankfully i don't have to wait that much longer. tuesday is going to be a great day, seeing kara,amanda, and janell. :)

lately it seems like i'm doing a lot of waiting. i wait for the day off work when i can go home. i wait for a good homemade meal and seeing old friends that i miss so much. i am waiting for next fall when i go back to school and can be with some amazing people. people say that the best things in life come to those who wait. well i sure hope that this waiting game will bring many good things.

serching for something.

for quite sometime now, i've been in a state of habit and stillness in my faith life. i haven't felt excited about church or God. i go to church every sunday and i still have believe in my faith, but something is missing. i've noticed that the last time i was "alive" or "renewed" in my faith was when i went to a huge community church in indy with my parents. it was there where i got chills when the pastor spoke and when the choir sang. it was like convention again. but here and now i'm not excited and i feel like i've been away from God... and i want to feel the fire of God's grace and be excited again. i LOVED campus worship at hesston. for me that was what i needed every week. but now i'm empty again. and i want to be filled. both howard miami and my home church zion are great churches but they aren't doing anything for me.

yesterday in church i sat there thinking about the other people in church, do they come to church every sunday because its the thing to do? or do they really have a passion for Jesus? do the highschool kids who sit in front before they get baptized sit infront because they are told to or because they WANT to? i love mennonite hymns. i love singing them. but lately i just listen, becasue to me i dont feel like i should be singing if i really am not getting anything out of it.

my parent's good friends have started this new mennonite church in downtown denver, focused on young adults and the outreach of peace and community. to me that sounds amazing. young adults that are excited about their mennonite faith and wanting to share it. it's hard i think when we are young trying to find our way through this world and our faith. trying to figure out what is right with us. i guess my whole life i have followed my parents and my church and now that i'm on my own, i'm realizing that i need more. i feel like i'm straying away from God. and i want so bad to be closer. i want to renew my faith again. i want to be filled up with the love of the Holy Spirit and be excited again.

everything will be ok.

yesterday i attended a wedding of a girl from my church that i'm going to. my boss and i had made the cake so we were the offical "cake cutters". i hadn't been to a wedding in quite some time and it was weird having to go with out knowing many people. i did know that there were quite a few church ladies trying to set me up with this single dude. haha. i had known about him for weeks, because everytime his mom or these ladies would see me it was all they could talk about...trying to set up their son's with me. well. needless to say i wasn't quite looking forward to a whole evening of akwardness. but as it turns out i was quite surprised on how much fun i really did have. it was great to be with my boss and her friends outside of work and to get to know more people from church. especially the younger people. and even though the dude i was suppose to "meet and greet" was a little too shy, i ended up dancing with his brother( who is very good looking:) ) and had a great time talking to his sister that is about my age. its funny how determined i was to not enjoy myself and was dreading the night. everything ended up being ok. it was great. i know that i worry alot about things and that i dread doing certain projects or having to be outgoing when i don't know many people. but i guess what i'm learning this year is that if i just be myself and keep having an open mind that things will always turn out to be fine :)

some random thoughts.

WELL. i just wrote a whole bunch and then when i tried to publish it, the screen froze and now here i am again...pissed. i've come to realize that i depend on technology so much, but in the end it just lets me down sometimes.HA.

i can't even believe that it's almost thanksgiving and soon christmas will be here. where has this year gone?!? i'm awaiting my application to goshen and in the meantime i'm still enjoying life as a baker...my love for it has grown so much in the past few months that i have a feeling it will be hard to go back to school next fall. but at the same time i miss the college life. last weekend i was at goshen for a concert and after seeing good friends and being surrounded by the life of goshen i felt homesick for my college life. i miss not paying bills or having to get up early on saturday mornings. i miss having people, my age, just a few feet away or going on random, exciting outings late at night. i miss having not to think about my next meal and what i should buy or what i should eat. though i know in college that sometimes happens. i even miss homework..well i shouldn't go THAT far. ;) the real world is fun and not having homework or exams IS a nice feeling. but missing out on the social life can be a setback. but just think, next year i'll be able to make some really kickass cakes for people :)

why i love this job.

on friday i got my first big challenge at work. i was given 5 different cakes to completely decorate and have boxed by 6 pm. my challenge was to get them all done in 5 hrs and have them all look like the "pastry diva" image. it was then that i experience the pressure of cake decorating. everytime i watch my boss, i get almost cocky. i tell my self, " that is so easy, i can definitely do that". but on friday i realized how hard it really is. and boy, was i stressing. i didn't have the easy button to push, i had to get through it as well as have my boss give me advice and some criticism along the way. which i needed. one cake took 2 hrs. i had to make sure my hand was steady, my lines were straight. am i decorating on the right cake? are you sure its light blue and not pale blue? did i put that square on straight? needless to say i did get all the cakes done, with some time to spare. ofcourse i cleaned in that spare time :). but i think the best part of all the frustation, and stress filled day was that there was this energy that came inside of me. i was on this natural high all night. and on saturday when the people came to pick up their cakes that i had worked on, all that hard work paid off. their faces lit up and the excitement from their voices told me that what i had done, would probably makes some little kid's birthday day even better. i think that is what i love about my job. durning the week, i am stressed out, tired, and scrambling to get my list completed. but at the end of the week it pays off in a huge way. to know that i just made someone's day with a simple yet beautiful cake is a wonderful feeling. and i love getting that feeling every week :)

this is what i know.

every day when i come home from work, peggy always asks me " what do you know?". the first few times i had to think about what she said because i had never heard something like that. but now, i just ramble off things from work and what all went on through out my day. its becoming a great thing for me because i know that she'll just laugh it off and i always seem to feel a bit better after telling someone the stresses of my day. today i began thinking of all things things i've learned and gotten to know since i've been here. so here is what i know:
:: when you go to culinary school, you are not allowed to wear nail polish::
:: if you are a single female, people will automatically assume that you need to be set up with every single male::
:: there is a little bit of craziness in everyone, you just have to inbrace it::
:: you have to be crazy to be a pastry chef ::
:: high school kids can be cool ::
:: high school talent shows are still awkward and cheesey::
:: i have amazing friends that i miss very much ::
:: every one makes mistakes, some bigger than others ::
:: dogs eat will eat ANYTHING. including trash ::
:: life is full of awkward moments ::
:: sometimes you just have to breath and let it go ::
:: other times you just have to scream ::
:: random days at work are the most fun :: :)

this and that.

do you ever remember things that happened exactly a year ago? ---
this past weekend was halloween and a year ago i was in hesston watching scary horror movies in my room with a boyfriend.(not the best halloween ever) and a few days after that i attened meda in toronto and broke up with that boy. fast forward a year and i'm here in kokomo the day after a halloween party with my boss from work and her friends. i was nervous, but in the end had a great time, and enjoyed myself. that party though, reminded me of that ex-boyfriend and why i will never date anyone of that nature again. after that i ended up going over to my boss's good friend's house and talking for a good hour. he was nice and his dog was crazy( let's call him dog boy).haha. it was weird though, for some reason i couldn't get away from the past. i couldn't get this certian boy out of my head. here i was talking about everything and anything and all i could think about was this boy. why?!? dog boy was funny and great to talk with but my mind was on the past. why is he still in my head?

when i woke up this morning i started thinking how much deja vu can be so real sometimes and how things that happened a year ago can come back and hunt you again. weird.

i have the brains. now i need the skills

this past week at work was quite busy. we had three weddings today(saturday) and i think the motivation wasn't all in us. needless to say, we were scrambling at the last min. but then again i think that is when the best things happen. on friday since my boss was too busy with the wedding cakes, i got put in charge of designing and completeting 3 different cakes. i was thrilled to say the least. i love the rush that i have when i get to completely decorate a cake on my own. and here was my opporitunity!! the first one was for a 7 year old boy. cute design, circles and squares, bright colors a fun design. the second, was for a 18 year old girl. browns and blues were the theme, along with a modern twist. and the third was an "all occasion" cake. i decided on a pasiley(spell?) design with browns and golds for the colors. all three cakes turned out AMAZING. and my boss was thrilled with the idea that she can trust me enough to finish cakes for her. but the thing i learned through all this was that right now i have the brain of an artist. i think like a graphic designer. my sketches that i draw and the way i see things are all from being involved in art. but what i don't have, YET, are my boss's skills. i need not only the art background, but i also need to have the skills. i know that it will come with time. the more i practice the better i'll be. but to hear my boss say that i actually am good at this, my boss, this amazing cake creator and designer telling me that my artistic skills are far better than she's seen, is such an outstanding complement. to think that someday down the road i can achieve both the SKILLS and the BRAINS, and make beautiful edible masterpiece is a powerful thing to think about. :)

the smell of fall.

so it is 8:45 in the morning and my pumpkin pie is almost done baking. and i LOVE the smell that is overflowing in the room and spreading through the house. mmmmmm. it reminds me home in the fall, cold crisp days, warm socks in the dryer, popcorn and cider at night and on the weekends grandma's pumpkin pie!! this year it seems like every little thing i do i am reminded of home or of hesston. this is my first year not living at home or not being in school. its different for sure, but i do love my job and having a year off from everything "familiar". i can't belive that its already october, soon it will be december and christmas will roll around and then the start of a new year! i don't even want to think that far ahead, because it means i will have to start making decisions about what i want to do with my life again. so for now i'll just enjoy the beautiful fall day, the smells of the warm bakery and the aroma of pumpkin pie.

the first one.

so i have decided to start a blog partly because most of my close friends all have them and while they are blogging about their crazy,wild,exciting adventures and some who are blogging just about life, i figured it would be fun to do the same.

so here is a little intro into my life as of today. i graduated from a two year Mennonite school in may and just after a week of a quick summer i moved down to kokomo, in working as a intern,apprentice,baker,designer,and decorator of wedding cakes and other sweet delectable desserts. i am now into my 5th month of experiencing life as an "adult". i don't consider myself as an adult, but when i have to pay 4 some different bills every month and i am living on my own-sort of- the adult life is quite REAL. i still don't believe that i'm not going to school and studying every night. it has not hit me yet that i now make cakes for a LIVING. its my job. i tell myself that i'm too young. i'm not ready yet for all of this. but at the same time i think about all the growing up i've done in these past five months and it amazes me how much i've learned about my life and the way i live it. and in a way i do feel like an adult. life is full of surprises,crappy days,exciting weekends, memories of the past and quite a few sugar highs. right now life is moving. FAST. and that excites me. and yet, i'm scared. but the road ahead looks promising and grand. so bring it on world, i'm ready.