This is not my normal MWF posting schedule, but I thought that I would take minute to post a quick note before my airport shuttle arrives.  I am very excited about getting started with my pastry arts courses.  Next week, I will be focusing on ingredient functionalities, mixing methods and basic pastry technique.  I’ll be making cookies, coconut macaroons, rocher meringues, brownies, muffins, scones, madeleines, financiers, angel food cakes, pound cakes, cheesecakes, chouquettes, tarts, and pies (whew…how will we ever fit so much into one week?).  For the second week, I will be working at Starter Bakery in Oakland for an intense week of hands-on training in puff pastries.  The third week, I will be back in class, focusing on cake bases, creams and compositions.  So much to do in such a small amount of time : )

These past few weeks there have been days that I have struggled with my decision to temporarily postpone my corporate job search.  Finding a 9-5 would be the most obvious route (I mean isn’t that why I spent 7 years in college getting my graduate degree?).  It would be the most economically sensible route (at least for the immediate future and with a husband that is currently a full-time student).  It would be the easy route.

I found this cute picture in a magazine a few years ago.  It’s now posted on the refrigerator so that I can see it every time I walk from the kitchen into the living room. It is strange that I (like so many of you) have to remind myself to make decisions based on what makes me happy….and not on what’s economically sensible or what is expected or what is easy.  Not only is it okay if I decide to pursue what makes me happiest, isn’t that what I should do? What we all should do?

A friend of mine signs all of her e-mails with the quote, “don’t ask yourself what the world needs. ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”   ….So true, so true.

So here I am about to embark on a culinary adventure to San Francisco.  I’m feeling very alive and very present and very happy.

So….what makes you happy?