Saturday, July 18, 2009

Still Awake

It's after midnight, and I've just now finished baking my cinnamon rolls and sticky buns.  My loaves of buttermilk white bread have just gone into the oven, and I'm still awake.

On these pre-farmers-market evenings, when I have to tell my friends I can't socialize, I must go home to bake bread - everyone keeps telling me, 'This is how it's going to be!' 'Get used to it!' 'These are going to be your hours!'

I know that my new career is going to involve very hard work, very long hours, and a lot more physical work than I do right now.  I'm ready for the challenge.  

But doing my new job AND my old job at the same time?  Well, it pretty much sucks.   I said goodbye to my friends and their bottle of wine tonight, their light gossip, their heart-warming laughs.  My husband is tucked in and fast asleep. Even my two dogs are passed out beneath my feet as I type.  And here I am.  Still awake.

But you know what?  Those moments when I'm drizzling my icing over the pans of cinnamon rolls - the satisfaction of feeling the perfect texture of white dough going into a greased pan - the beauty of the toasted nuts on the sticky buns as I turn them out of their pans and reveal their gooey goodness - it makes me smile.  It makes my heart jump.  It makes me feel . . . alive, alert, awake.

So I'm still awake.  Smelling the scent of warm white bread wafting from the oven, feeling the tingle in my nose of the hint of cinnamon that laces the air in the house, dreaming of my new life and making it happen here, now, past midnight.

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