2nd day at the Farmers Market

I am going against the flesh...I do not want to blog.

Yesterday 6/12, Friday I worked at 830am till 530pm, came home, prepped the kitchen, and made bread. I was up till 200am, and woke up at 630am the next morning to make more bread. Then it was off to the farmers market. This pretty much sums it all up. My mom's day was just as hectic: she was up by 715am, the baby she baby sits came before 800am (my mom watches her till 600pm), my mom made fresh spaghetti sauce (so we could all have a home cooked meal in the midst of our busy day) and she made 4 batches of coffee cake. When I came home from work she helped me prep the kitchen and was my helper in getting all the breads made (and she calls me super women...now we know where I get it from). In the kitchen was my mom, jerry (my step dad), and myself all working like little busy bees. As I watched us working together in the kitchen I thanked the Lord, cause what we do is a team effort and not one person can get more credit that the other, God gets all the credit, He orchestrates it all! It was truly a moment of gratefulness. Did I mention... Jerry ground all the flour approx 50lbs, as needed.

Now of course there was some doozies along the way. Not getting into too much detail: #1- My mom only wanted to double the recipe for the coffee cakes ( she had never quadrupled it and didn't want to take any chances), but Someone had other plans. Mom accidently added 4x the amount of baking powder than was needed, forcing her to make a quadruple batch of coffee cake vs. the double batch she had planned. #2-Trying to get others to follow instructions is not very easy, especially when you're telling your mom what to do. It's hard when the roles are reversed and my mom has to do what I say, she has many years of "cooking experience", but none in "bread making experience.". And #3- When we were on our last 10 loaves of bread (at 12ish...am), and they were on the counter rising, we started cleaning up the kitchen... and someone (I'm not mentioning any names) somehow broke a coffee cup on the counter and it shattered on to the bread. We had to throw out a little under 20lbs of bread dough. There was no way I was going to start 2 new batches of bread. By the time we cleaned up the kitchen and got the breads and coffee cake slices bagged , labeled and packed it was after 130am.

I rose early to make the 2 batches of bread again and met everyone at the farmers market at 930am. It was good we made the extra bread cause once again we were sold out before 11am.

Let me tell you the miracle in all this: We all got along, nobody broke out crying when we had to throw out all that bread. We took peace in knowing God was in control. To God be the Glory Great things He hath done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My brother Josh helped out in cleaning the kitchen and getting the labels all ready for the breads, my husband David was a GREAT help in just being there when I needed him and always had encouraging words, and of course the girls were the a great help in selling the bread, and passing out the samples, and sharing the ingredients we used ( emphasizing all the stuff that's good for you...that's how David puts it).

Thank you returning customers and Thank you new customers! It is our prayer you keep coming back!

1st day at the Lawrenceville farmers market

Well we had our first day at the farmers market...we were there by 7:30. We set everything up and everything looked great. We were a little worried about the bread because we used a new grain from a new source rather than the one we use to get in California. The bread was a little heavier than usual. As I was cutting the breads for samples I was noticing a bit of a difference in the texture, but what could we do. My mom and I were a little worried that people might not like it , but like I said "what could we do?". There was really nothing we could do but leave it in the Lord's hands, but what I could do was smother the samples with the honey butter that I made... and that seemed to have worked. People were tasting the samples and they seemed to have enjoyed it, although were weren't selling it very fast, but then it was only about 8:15am and the market opened at 8:00 am. I wasn't going to be staying at the Farmers market long because I had work too, and I was very tired. I needed to try to take a little nap before heading to work. Curly and Babbs (My daughters) wanted to come by at 8am to help pass out samples and help sell. They arrived a little bit before 8:30 and OMG they came enthused and were just chatting it up with the people, I was so proud of them, but still I was a little worried we weren't gonna sell all that bread. I was afraid we would have to keep it stored in the freezes and eat it as we needed (or keep it in he freezer till Thanksgiving and my mom could use it for stuffing):-/ That's all I could think about as David took me home... I verbalized this a lot in the car, but David was a great listener and kept saying not to worry about it. Finally it hit me... stop worrying about it, this is in God's hands whatever happens happens, and all of a sudden I felt a peace! I went home took a nap, took a shower and called Curly at 12:00pm to see how things were going. I was ecstatic about what I heard! Curly said they had sold out about an hour ago and people loved the idea of Freshly ground whole wheat bread, we also ground some bags of wheat and sold it to people!!!
So now my prayer is that the bread be sweet to their taste and they come back next week wanting more...God's in control right? Right
This evening Babbs also gave a little pep talk on how my mom and I need to be an example of how to eat healthier... this too is going to be challenging, but its true... we need to be an example.

Please keep us in your prayers, next Friday I have to make even more bread plus I work on Friday too. Impossible? Nothing is impossible with God!

How I feel about freshly Milled Breads

I'm really excited about this bread making opportunity. I know there are lots of bakeries out there, lots of cafes, and even places like The Atlanta Bread company and Paneras bread out there, but we have something that they don't... we literally grind our grain in a mill then and there. My goal is Buckhead.... that's where I really want our business, there are so many people out there who eat out and desire to eat right! I want to encourage others to eat healthier!!!

Being involved in the Lawrenceville farmers market is an opening door for us that we didn't know how to open. I work full time in customer service at a retail store and I'm getting sick of it. Literally a few weeks ago I've been crying and whining and complaining to the Lord about this discontentment (there wasn't much I could do about it, so daily I needed to try to be content knowing that this is God's will concerning me). I want to be home and work with the girls, I mean we don't see each other, we all work full time or close to it and we are all just passing by each other. I want to play a part in their lives again, this is my cry to the Lord. So I really believe he has opened this door of opportunity. I'm such a wretched person I don't know why he takes time to hear me but he does and I'm really glad. I have this confidence "...If we ask anything according to his will he heareth us: And If we/ I know that he hear us/ me, whatsoever we/I ask, we/I know that we/I have the petitions that we/I desire of Him!

1 John 5:14-15

1st Day of freshly milled breads and more....

thank you Lord! Today was my first day of making bread for our farmers market. My family and I see this as an opportunity to open our own business (a cafe or bakery and my mom has the vision of selling the bosches and mills and doing live demos)

The goal toady was to start making the bread at 8am. Now I really did want to actually be making the bread at 8 which would have meant I needed to get up by 7am if I wanted to have some bible time (which is much needed daily and so how much more when making over 50 loaves of bread to sell). Well that plan didn't work out and I ended up getting up a little after 7:30. By 8:15 I'm in the kitchen ready to start. My mom had said the night before she and Jerry were gonna get the kitchen all set up for me... well that didn't happen. At 8:15 jerry was still vacuuming the kitchen (and he's very detailed), and my mom is making protein drinks for breakfast. I reminded my mom about our agreement she said she knew I wasn't gonna be ready, a lot of confidence she has in me huh? I could of let myself get stressed at this point ( because I'm the type that likes to work with a schedule), but thank The Lord I did my Bible cause I was still feeling at peace!

In reality the braed making process started at 9 (may I remind you that's grinding the grain and all). I have ready 2 mills and 2 bosches and I'm ready to go!

Side note: I originally had only 1 bosch and one mill, and we all knew that was gonna be hard if we needed to make all that bread. Also we are all in a financial pinch and can't just buy a new Bosch and Mill. My mom was prompted to call a friend who had both items and she wasn't using them like she thought she would and she had bought them from a lady who sold them to to her at a good price, Now our friend was willing to sell them to us at that same good price (since she wasn't using them)

So I start the first 2 batches. #1 the bosch we got from our friend is a lot louder than the one I own and it doesn't seem to mix as fast as mine "oh well" I think) #2 the mill is so flippin loud, I mean it sound like David (my husband) has the back pack blower for the yard on in the house. It's alright though... we have to make do with what we have. So I adding in about the 13th to 14th cup of flower in the other boch and it just DIES. All I can think is " are you serious" Oh well we have to still keep going, so now where pulling out the dough from the bowl and my mom starts to knead it by hand, just until the other batch is finished and we can knead it in that machine. The point is I am back down to 1 machine. My mom is kinda frantic and thinks we need to go out and by a machine TODAY, that's 400.00 we don't have...and if it wasn't for David we would have bought it. Thank God for David... he said NO... and with reason, we don't have the money.

Somehow I'm still able to manage to stay calm... I'm telling you it's that quiet time I had with the LORD!

Growing up I did what my mom wanted in the kitchen and now the roles are reversed, now she the prep cook, and she's real good! She's my second pair of hands. She calls herself the "My brown Slave".

So from exactly 9-12pm we came up with 30 loaves of bread! we're doing 10 loaves an hour..

Oh I forgot to mention... I invited 2 friends over for lunch, they both ordered bread so I thought I'd make them a sandwich when they came by, that's why I had to stop at 12pm, company is coming at 1:30. So now in the midst of all this bread making I need to stop and put some sandwiches together and clean up a bit... I don't want to scare them with the mess. It would also give me a little break from the bread making. I'm suppose to have two friends stop by at the same time (to me it's like killing two birds with one stone), but like a lot of other things that didn't work out. One friend did come by a little after 1:30 (and she ended up buying 2 breads vs. the 1 she ordered, so that's cool). And now I'm still expecting my other friend and I don't really want to start making the bread cause it's kinda hard to just stop and entertain... you know what I mean. I'm hoping shell come before 4, I plan to get started again at 4. I have 20 or more loaves to make (regular and raisin) and batches of cinnamon rolls, besides that I also need to work on our display for the farmers market, and I really want to take time and figure out how much money we've put in and how much we'll be getting if all sells. I know we'll be putting more money in, in the beginning.

I think this farmers market last till Oct, by them I'm gonna be ready to go on that cruise we talk about often, even though we can't afford it but maybe the bread business will do so well we won't have to feel to guilty, financially.