It's Memorial Day morning. I've gotten up early. Billy is enjoying sleeping late. He told me last night that he was going to treat this day like a holiday by just doing nothing except catching up on reading the paper, maybe working at his desk a little. 

What a week I had! I've finally gotten my permit from the State and now I can officially sell bread at the Farmer's Markets at the Botanic Garden and Downtown. 

This week was a learning experience. Here I am with my lifelong friend Molly Turner. Her grandmother and my grandmother played canasta together a million years ago. Her mother, Mary Anne, and my mother went to high school together. Molly's father, Pop Turner, was in the military and when he brought his family back home to Covington they stayed in the big old two story house where Mary Anne grew up. I always loved that house with the huge front porch on College Street. 

When Molly visited during the summers she and I would play together. 

We reconnected after years of not seeing each other. When she found out that I was starting this business she invited me to lunch and let me know that she would help me any way she could. 

When my permit came through I sent her an email and collected on her promise. She was as good as her word and better. She showed up at my house on Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 to help load things into the car. The Market at the Botanic Gardens starts at 2 pm. Molly and I loaded tables, bread, money box, price list and ten tons of other stuff into the trunk of her mother's car and off she went to set up while I got myself dressed. 

The first day of the season is always a test. We got off to a slow start, but quickly recovered. I went on to sell everything I had except the one box of sticky buns that the little black ants got in to. We gave them to a friend of hers who works at the Gardens after carefully shooing off the ants. 

But the Saturday morning Farmer's Market Downtown is a very different experience from the Botanic Gardens. It's a much bigger operation. I had no idea what to expect. I had friends who'd told me I'd do very well, but that wasn't enough information about how much bread to bake. Not only that but it starts at 7 am which meant I needed to be Downtown, dressed and ready to sell by opening. Makes me tired just to think about it.
I failed.
I was 7:30 getting there. Tamara Jeanes is in the picture. Here she is learning the process of mixing the dough for the whole wheat loaf. I used this black and white picture because that's the way the world looked at 4:30 am.  Tamara is a real trouper. She helped me on Saturday morning. She came by my house at 4 o'clock in the morning and we went over to St. Anne's on Highland to their little commercial kitchen. I'm renting that kitchen because I can't bake at my house because of the health code. They don't seem to want dog hair in the dinner rolls. Go figure.

Tamara and I went straight to the kitchen, but it's so easy to forget things when you move one kitchen to another. I had to haul my mixer, my wheat grinder, honey, oil, sugar, filling for the sticky buns, loaf pans, bread flour, rolling pin, bread pans, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I forgot a couple of essentials and Tamara had to drive back to my house to get them. Time is money when you're baking bread.

All of it should have been taken on Friday night, but, you know what Billy says. "You live. You learn." Except he says it with a heavy New York accent and learn is pronounced "lue' ween." As in: You live. You lue' ween. You have to shrug your shoulders when you say it. But it's a simple but true statement.

 I really just tried to do the best I could and to stay present with what I was doing, and to 

"lue' ween."

The guy next to us at the Farmer's Market Downtown sold essential oils. I'm so glad he's right next to us. I'm looking forward to learning more about oils and how to use them. In the picture above I'm taking a whiff of an essential oil blend that is designed for sleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately so I traded Craig a box of sticky buns for the little jar of sleep oil. I used it last night and it worked. I slept better than I have in a while.
I thought a picture sniffing the bottle was in order. Molly laughs at my jokes. Therefore I shall have to insist that she volunteer every week.