Learned Behaviors

With this new found hunger for life I have found myself reflecting on everything that pertains to me. The way that I grew up, my family, my friendships, the things that make me happy, the things that make me sad, pretty much everything about my existence. Something that I have recently realized is that I have never found anyone quite like me. I have three sisters and one brother, we look alike, but we all have completely different personalities. And believe it or not I am the odd ball. Its not that bad, its fun, and its the truth. Here is an example of my odd ballness, my youngest sister's bday is October 24,my older sisters bday is December 25, my oldest sisters bday is June 26, and my brothers bday is January 28. Look at the day they were born, all in order, all that's needed is the 27th, good thing my bday is March 27th right....wrong its June 4th. There are other things that I can talk about but the truth of the matter is that I never had a problem with being different. From a young age I was comfortable in my skin. I didn't mind playing alone, or playing with others. I didn't see anything wrong with crying after my mother left me. I didn't care about matching clothes, or what my reflection looked like. I was never self conscious. I learned later in life that you are supposed to care what people think about you and have things that you don't like about yourself. I stopped wearing flip flops because I was told me feet were to big. I'm sure they are, but they are my feet and I didn't have much control over them, so why not embrace them. Once I realized that my feet are perfect simply because they are mine I did away with the sneakers and embraced my Fred flinstone hand feet.

In regards to my baking I sometimes find myself discouraged because there are so many wonderful cake decorators out there. Real artists making real art. I am just someone who is fiddling in a possible interest, there is no place for me in this culinary world. Or is there? When I find myself having the negative, counter productive thought I automatically challenge it and remind myself that I am not trying to be like the cake boss, or even the woman that I interned with. I am merely doing something that I enjoy and allowing others to be apart of my journey (by indulging in MarYumms yummies). I am going to leave my mark my way. I cant be the Maryam who put socks on with flip flops because everyone else had issues with themselves, I am going to embrace the Maryam who is comfortable with herself, flaws and all.

Pictured above is a splenda strawberry flower cake and a coconut number six cake, both received positive feedback so that is good with me.

Until next time...

Rolling with the times

I have been thinking about how in the good old days you could save your way to success. I see success in my future (not seeking wealth, but happiness, not despising getting up and going to work every morning), but I am having trouble with the saving part. I have always thought of my savings account as a postponed funds account. Every time I save X amount of dollars an unexpected expense occurs for nearly that same amount. In those situations I remain calm, and tell myself to be grateful for having that money and being able to hand the situation.
When I was younger I was under the impression that life simply happened. Things come to you with little to no effort. Things were supposed to happen, and if you did the first the rest would follow. College leads to a great job. Then you meet your wonderful husband and children follow. Now that I have experienced a little more of this thing called life I have learned that you have to make life happen (with the help of God of course). For three years I have gone to work simply to pay my bills, sometimes coming up short :( During those three years I applied for jobs religiously, jobs that I was over, under and perfectly qualified for, but have had no success. I personalized my resume, cover letters, emailed people in offices, went to businesses EVERYTHING!! And to my surprise that process has left me empty handed. Through it all I have remained optimistic, although my stinky attitude days came and went. And today I can tell you that my energy is no longer invested into landing that "dream job", all of my wonderful energy is invested in me making that dream job. So far so good :)
***I would like to thank EVERYONE who has supported MarYumms, it truly means a lot.
Until next time...

My life road map

Sometimes in the middle of being frustrated or confused about life I wonder why we weren't supplied with a life outline, blue print, road map, something. Something that allows us to know that we are headed in the right direction. Something that we can refer to that will ease the current stressors because we can peek ahead and see that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. Recently a light bulb went off, and I realized that I do have my own life map, my intuition. I have been developing a closer relationship with myself over the past couple of years. And through developing this relationship I have become very comfortable with listening to my heart and filtering through my mind, and that method has been very successful. When I reflect on my younger years, I realized that my biggest and hardest life lessons occurred when I put my instincts on the back burner, and allowed others to make decisions for me. That approach was easier at times, but they ended up leaving the scars that have lasted the longest. In life we have so many authority figures, laws, and moral guidelines that we tend to listen to ourselves last. In doing that I believe that we are missing out on our next set of directions, causing many of us to go into undesired directions. I do not know where I am going to be in a year from now, but I know that today I am in a very good place. And I am extremely grateful for that.

I am a believer in everything happening for a reason. Regrets don't exist, only life lessons. As you already know I would not mind having a real job, an environment in which I have an office, a place that would skip a beat if I was not there.Unfortunately, for the past four years I have been employed at a place in which I belong no where and cancels me when I am not needed. But regardless of my daily job woes I can say that my job has taught me an invaluable tool. The ability to identify a crazy person within moments of meeting them. Now that I am perfecting my skill, I have to remember that when I leave the confines of the hospital I will still encounter crazy people. I recently had an experience in which someone (not a customer, friend, co worker, just some random person) took it upon themselves to give me all of this criticism, when I have been hearing the opposite of their opinions from everyone else. Mind you this was not constructive it was out of the left field criticisms. I treated the individual normally, but I did get offended and upset. While telling my husband the story, I realized that the individual was crazy, and I should have treated them like I do the patients at work. With no emotional involvement, keeping calm and respond as if they were normal. That incident reminded me to keep my cradar (crazy people radar) on, because if you give into some one's madness it could ruin your day.

Yesterday I completed another flower cake (pictured above). This was the first one with chocolate fudge frosting. The fudge gave me some minor problems, but after I had a good talk with it, it changed its attitude. The happy birthday was supposed to be the flower's leaves :( Ill work on that for next time. Today I am selling after Juma, I am introducing a new flavor banana with chocolate cream cheese (pictured above). We will see if they sell out. Until next time...

not a real post

I am just posting pictures of my two latest cakes, I think they are too cute!! The first is another flower cake. I love flower cakes because they are so cupcake friendly. This one is made of seven vanilla cupcakes and has a strawberry butter cream frosting. The second is a heart cake made from ten chocolate cupcakes and it has a strawberry butter cream frosting as well. So far the strawberry frostings are very popular. I have a strawberry butter cream and a strawberry cream cheese, and they are both delish!! Well until next time...

What can go wrong will

Where to begin? Word of mouth is truly the best advertisement. This week, was a very busy week for me. I had an order of 2 dozen minis for Thursday, after I dropped them off at my friends house (who braids from her home), she called me with two more orders for Friday. One of my co workers ordered 60 minis and 60 cookies (both pictured above) for his organizations picnic, and I had to bake 3 dozen regular cupcakes to sell at two local Masjids. Today I have two cakes, one heart and one flower.
I try to do my baking early to leave room for error. Even though I have orders I am still a beginner and I know from previous experience that the kitchen has a mind of its own. The two major setbacks that I experienced were my chocolate cupcake recipe and the cookie dough. I am trying to come up with my own chocolate cupcake recipe, I want it to be chocolaty but sweet. I don't want it to taste like coffee or to be serious, I want it to be playful and fun. Thursday evening after I had been baking for two days straight I went against my instinct of adding more chocolate to the batter and the cupcakes came out the same color as my carrot cupcakes. I was soo upset because all I wanted to do was lay down. If you know me then you know that I needed my naps, and this was my third day with out one, and it was around ten at night, the bed was soo close, but after those brown cupcakes came out I knew that I had to put my sleep off for another 45 minutes or so. After I sulked for a couple of minutes I sucked it up and followed my instincts and the cupcakes came out exactly how I wanted them to be. Lesson learned follow instincts!!
Even though my addiction is the cute cupcake, I make a delicious cookie too. I made the cookie dough Wednesday night so that it could freeze over night so all that I would have to do is bake them and they would be good to go. As I started baking I noticed that the cookies were coming out super thin. They were falling apart when I touched them (after they were cool of course). But me being the queen of denial, I baked them all, thinking that since they were smaller than usual the dough was acting funny. The next morning (delivery day), I was not loving these cookies so I began making another batch of cookie dough, and as I read the ingredients, I knew what went wrong, I added the same amount of brown sugar and white sugar, when the recipe called for a whole lot of brown sugar and a tad bit of white sugar. Fortunately the guy texted me saying that he needed a later later drop off so everything worked out great. Leson learned follow instrutions!!
When I am in the kitchen I try to move slow, and I try to do a maximum of two things at a time, because each recipe is different and as you can see if you don't pay attention the first time you will just have to do it over again.
Well I have to get these cakes together.
Until next time....

Nearly one year later

I have recently realized that I think within the box. I owe my new outlook to my husband, because he doesn't even know that a box exists. I have put a lot of emphasis on degrees, and the conventional way of doing things. Applying for jobs, looking into graduate programs, when in reality I do not want to do either. I am blessed to be around a variety of individuals. I know people who will be doctors in a couple of years, and I know people who have great marketable skills. I want to be a little of both. I want to have my plaques on the wall, but at the same time you have to have that thing that you enjoy that can pay for your weekend getaway to Savannah. Right now, I am on a break from school. I see myself going back, but I have to be in a different place mentally. In time everything will fall together, I am in no way worried about my educational future. I am just trying to live, and not let life get the best of me. My first degree has given me the privilege of working at a place where i get poop on my shoe (literally), so I am not rushing the second one.
There are so many ways of learning. Small business owners need help, and interning is a great way to learn how things are done in the trade that you are interested in. Just send a flowery email, and set up a meeting (don't forget to smile), and I am sure they would be happy for the helping hand. Well, it worked for me, I am extremely grateful for my time at the bakery. My experience at the bakery allowed me to become comfortable with baking and I learned a lot of tricks of the trade. Unfortunately my internship turned into me doing what every one else did not want to do. When that became a constant occurrence I informed the owner that I would only be able to come in once a week, the following week she told me that my services were no longer needed.
Now that I have some professional experience under my belt, I am comfortable with taking orders. And boy have I been getting orders. All I have to do is mention that I sell cupcakes, and boom they order a dozen. lol. I have done a couple of cupcake cakes too (one is pictured above). I love it!! Never before have I felt this passionate about a career. So with the help of God, I will be able to be my own boss in due time.
I will try and be more consistent in my posts, and give updates on my orders. Until next time...

Journey of 1000 steps

I have never been as obsessed with something as much as I am with baking. Its hard for me to contain my enthusiasm, that's one of the reasons why I began this blog. I want to be able to keep my passion to myself as much as possible, but at the same time I need an outlet for all of my experiences.
This week I sold my second cake. It was a caramel cake. Prior to the order I had never heard of a caramel cake. I googled recipes but I didn't like the reviews that most of the recipes I came across. Luckily my mother gave me several cookbooks and I found an excellent caramel walnut cake recipe. I eliminated the walnuts and walla, caramel cake. From the beginning of my baking I have been looking for the key to a moist cake. I came across applesauce, mayonnaise, and other random things found in the refrigerator that just so happen to keep your cake wet. Luckily for me I have been observing everything at the bakery. And here my friends are the key steps to a moist cake. The first is creaming the sugar and butter really really well, the second is to add your flour last and don't over mix it. Over mixing is simply mixing the batter too long after the flour is added, all you want to do is incorporate the flour, and the last key to moist perfection is timing. Set a timer every six minutes, rotate the cake each time, when the cake is almost done check it around every two minutes or so and then remove it. My cake was so wonderfully moist I couldn't believe it. Now all I have to do is work on my icing skills. Practice will make perfect, and I am definitely up for the challenge.
Until next time...

Something like irony

When I started working at the hospital a little over three years ago I always had a story to tell. Everything that happened was so out of the ordinary and unreal that I had to share these semi amusing stories to any and everyone that would listen. Today when asked how my day was a fog comes over me. I draw a blank. The semi amusing things still happen, but they are no longer new to me. My job has caused me to turn off a piece of me that I really want on. That is why I am seeking a profession/hobby that will provide me with daily joys. Today a man came into the bakery, he did not smile, he appeared to be lost. He asked for two dozen cupcakes. He didn't care about the price or the flavors he had to get them for an impromptu birthday party at his office. He went on to explain that initially they had nothing planned and later his boss decided he wanted to do something for this individuals birthday, he ended by saying so here I am. During our encounter he did not smile once, he actually seemed unhappy about having to search the city for cupcakes for someones last minute office birthday bash. After he left I reflected upon our interaction, and I knew that in ten years I do not want to be the person running errands for an indecisive boss, I want to be the person with the bakery for the last minute cupcakes.
This past week I worked with the geriatric patients. I sincerely love working with them, but there is one down side to working on that unit, it always smells like urine or the movement of bowels. I am so serious, the full time staff on the unit have started wearing face masks out of fear of becoming sick from the constant odor. On Tuesday I spent my entire 16 hours on that unit only to wake up the next day to intern at a bakery with an aroma of happiness. Lol, that is the only way that I can explain it. This week I have gained a little independence. I made my first batch of cookie dough, it was sugar lemon, and I baked my first batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. I have put them in the oven before but this was the first time that I took them out when they were done. That's a big accomplishment for a second week intern. My supervisors keep assuring me that as time progresses I will be doing more. I believe them and look forward to the hard work that lies ahead.
Until next time....

Internship

I had driven past this bakery plenty times. The owner has a cute sign at the top of the parking lot that says "you need a cupcake now!". I will admit that I was initially jealous when I noticed it, jealous that someone else was living out my dream. I don't know what inspired me to email the owner, I really have no idea as to why I did it, but low and behold she was looking for someone that she could train and hire. I came in thinking that I was just going to see how I liked the environment, and for her to see if she liked me, but I was actually the intern when I had stepped out of her office the week before. My first day there did not feel like a first day at all. I was making cupcakes, doing dishes and assisting in the front. Every time I turned around there was something for me to do. The bakery has its sales floor where they sell cupcakes, cookies, and brownies, the kitchen where all of the magic happens, the owners office and a consultation room. They are constantly baking for the bakery and for the many orders that they have to complete. What I didn't know about this bakery is that the owner is amazing! She was voted brides choice last year, and she can make a cake to look like anything. But above all everything is perfectly delicious. She is eager to teach, in exchange for the help that I am giving. I know that I am going to learn so much from just being there. I have been there five times, and I think that I have the cupcakes under control. I cant wait until I am icing cakes and making designer bags. I really feel good about this experience. Right now I have a hectic schedule, I do three doubles at the hospital, two days at the bakery and two days for myself. I love it! Until next time...

Entry # 1

As I sit here trying to figure out how to begin the first sentence of my first blog entry I feel at peace. During the final days of 2009 I made several promises to myself; mainly promises that would allow my future to me different from my past, and I can say that on this fifth day of March that I am keeping the promises that were made.

Who am I?
Hmm....I am a twenty four year old, newly married, optimistic young lady who knows she is destined for success. That knowledge drives me to pursue my interests until I find what it is that I am looking for. As a child my profession of choice was the person at Dunkin Doughnuts that hands you to the doughnuts...lol, I would explain that to people with a straight face. Not understanding the puzzled looks I received while maintaining confidence behind my aspired profession. After maturing I decided on becoming what I thought was a psychologist but in reality I was interested in therapy. I have always had an appreciation for communication. There was a point where I was shut off to the world, because communication can hurt as much as it can heal, but now that I am older I appreciate it more and know when its necessary to use. All through high school I knew that I would attend college and major in psychology, and some how have an office and see clients. I didn't really know the necessary steps to accomplish that dream. The summer before college I had an emergency trip to the dentist, that trip changed my career goals to dentistry, but a couple semesters of college biology shifted my interest back to psychology. After finishing college there was one thing that I knew I did not want to do....go back to school. With no perspective jobs I took a month hiatus in Egypt to study Arabic. That month was a well needed vacation from the mental anguish I was in towards the end of my undergraduate years. I had no job, my resume was shabby, but I did have a college degree and a father with lots of contacts (or so I thought), so the uncertainties of my future were on hold while I rode camels, acted like I spoke the language and hung out on the Nile. The three months after my return were spent developing a resume, calling businesses, going to job fairs and trying to stay optimistic in what seemed like a horrible situation. I foolishly financed my lavish lifestyle with two credit cards, that I am still paying on today. Luckily my father was able to get me a job at a behavioral hospital, and I have been employed there for three years. After my first year I began graduate studies for professional counseling, but on the last day of my practicum I realized that I no longer wanted to listen to people's problems for a living. Being a counselor is very selfless. You have to use yourself as a mirror for your clients, and it is up to them to grow or to remain stagnant. Regardless of how much I enjoy to see others happy I cannot dedicate years of studying, internships and low pay for people who may or may not benefit from my patience. Luckily for me in the middle of my career changes I met my dream husband. It completely caught me off guard, but I knew who I was looking for and ten months later we were married in the most wonderful wedding, and today nine months later we are still happy and in love. We both are constant motivations for the other to succeed in whatever we are aspiring to do.
Where am I today? I still work at the nut house, only for income, but I am interning at a wonderful bakery around the corner from my house. Someone recently told me that people are more aware of what they want to do when they are younger than when they are older. Is it possible that the child who wanted to hand people doughnuts had more self awareness than the college graduate who was interested in therapy? Only time will tell....