[Originally published on thecitygoround.com, the personal blog of Emily Day]
Chapter 5 is juicy, I promise. However, four very long chapters have set the stage for this juiciness. To get you up to speed in a hurry, here’s a cliff note synopsis.
Chapter 1: childhood – wonderful family, friends, and memories in Kansas City, MO, and Minneapolis, MN
- me and my older sis
Chapter 2: college – pretty amazing on all fronts; academic, social, and life lessons. Gosh, I wish there was mid-life college too. Those were the days!
- my college dorm, University of New Hampshire
Chapter 3: career – my workaholic lifestyle took me on a nationwide tour full of hands-on experiences, fantastic people, and lots more life lessons
- The places that I’ve lived and worked
Chapter 4: personal life gets a breakout role – a pretty sweet chapter, beginning 2.5 years ago! Met my husband, moved in together (in my small one bedroom apt), bought a condo, quit my job, started my own consulting business, completed a major remodel project on our condo, got engaged, moved into our condo, got married.
Phew, we’ve been real busy!!
- Me and Ryan making empanadas
- Yippee…we’re married!!
And here we are, at Chapter 5 (see, that was quick!):
Bakeries, baking, eating baked goods, exercising to eat more baked goods. This has been my life for the past 9 years or so. Ok – I’ve had a slightly more well rounded life and I like to eat lots more than baked goods. They just take priority at times.
My healthy obsession actually began far longer than 9 years ago, in chapter 1 when cooking and baking was always a big part of my family life. We would make cookies after school, bake up a storm for special occasions, and our family always spent the most time in the kitchen.
But, it was 9 years ago (in NYC) that I created my 3-ring binder centered around opening my own bakery. I had already attended culinary school for a half a second and had worked at some great restaurants in some great cities, but it was at this point that I realized my love for baking and baked goods could take center stage. I had grand plans to open the bakery then and there, but it just wasn’t the right time. So, instead, I started managing a bakery (a shift from the full service, high end restaurant world) and the opportunity opened on the west coast to oversee a group of bakeries.
My almost seven years in San Francisco have been filled to the brim to say the least; the first two thirds with a ton of work (and all of the good things that come with hard work) and the last third with the achievement of some long overdue personal goals. One might say that I’ve checked an awful lot off of my bucket list. I agree and I feel quite fortunate (and happy!). However, there’s still one little thing that’s tugging at my coat tails.
Enter Flour & Co, my very own bakery, and the juicy part of this story.
Can you believe it!?! I can hardly believe it, and it’s happening to me. No backsies here. I’ve signed a lease in Lower Nob Hill, I have lots of wonderful family and friends supporting my efforts, money is already sneaking out of my pocket at an alarming rate, and I’ve got some pretty sweet plans in store for this little neighborhood bakeshop. You may think I appear to be cool as a cucumber, but on the inside I can hardly contain myself. Yahooo!!!
- Me in front of the soon to be bakery!
As you may have guessed, chapter 5 is going to be jam packed, tiny print, a page turner, if you will. It’s a work in progress and has only just begun. But, I’m ready for it.
And…I can’t wait to share it with you! Not just the finished product, but the path to bringing Flour & Co to life. I promise a sweet journey full of checklists, research, baking, tasting, setbacks, milestones, laughter, tears (from me that is), a little abracadabra, get ‘er done action, you name it.
So, until later…
~ Emily
GO EM!!
Thanks, Adrian!