History Part 3

I once had a friend tell me I worry about step Z before step A even starts and that comment is too true. I am a planner. I lack any ounce of spontaneity and my decision are made after careful thought and calculated risks. For example prior to purchasing my car, I researched vehicles for 6 months before I every took a test drive and left the car that looked the best on paper as the last to drive to make sure I considered all my options (remember certifiable). So I started spinning... what color should the delivery vans be? Should I trademark my logo? When do I decide to franchise? Okay, wait a minute Erinn calm down before you get too a head of yourself. Hello Kettle, Pot calling. (Yes I really have started taking to myself in the absence of other humans) So the first thing I decided to do was a trial run. Thankfully, I was in charge of coffee after church on that Sunday and cookies are expected. Great, I will make up a couple kinds of cookies. Interesting thing here, I have been baking for a good 20 years now and cookies were one of the first things I baked. But I have never really paid attention to how many cookies I get out of each batch or how quickly I can make them. It never crossed my mind. I bake for the enjoyment of the process and for the joy of giving it away. Those detail had never been important before, and most of the time I am doing a host of other things while I am baking. So I set out upon my task. I made a batch of Chocolate Chip and a batch of Oatmeal Scotchie. I discovered that after my “test” portion of the batter I grossed 4 dozen Chocolate Chip cookies and 5 dozen Oatmeal. Not bad, in all it took me about 3 hours. So now I a base for production and output. (Watch out here comes the econ terms!!) Things went smoothly at church and everyone enjoyed the cookies. But then reality hit. What am I thinking? I have no idea if this will even be profitable. So the next few days I pushed the whole idea to the back burner. Plus I had a interview and found several jobs to apply for – and that continues to be the most important thing. I decided that the next step was to find out how much it really costs to bake each recipe. So until I went further I needed to take a trip to Meijer.