Expect the Unexpected

I'm a planner by nature and I like to be organized mainly because for me the anxiety of not having a well laid out plan is frightening. Kind of like arriving at the third busiest airport in the world, in a city you've never been to, and pulling out of the rental car garage only to realize that your GPS is still searching for a satellite signal. AND you have no idea where you're going because you didn't print directions (thinking that technology would not fail you). AND you can't stop and ask for help because the locals don't speak English (o.k. well here they did, but that would just be the icing on the cake so to speak!).

Yes, welcome to my recent nightmare. Of course it was only the start of an onslaught of misdirection, detours, and botched planning over a multitude of days and weeks. And as if to test my patience even further, last night was a pure example of how it doesn't matter how organized you might think you are, sometimes you're just not - despite trying!

Sandy contacted me many moons ago about a cake for her daughter's first communion. She sent me a picture of how she wanted the cake topper to appear and the rest was up to me. BUT after agreeing to fill this order something came up which had me leave the country for an extended time - not returning until the day before the cake was needed. And since I had already given my word I was going to make it work.

A week before I left the planner in me sat down, made a list, and purchased everything I would need so that on the day I returned I could just get down to work without any further hassle. Then came Jayna's cake request (see the previous post)...which required all the same ingredients. So what did I do? I used them...and didn't replace them. Awesome.

I started working on this cake shortly after 6:00 pm when I returned from the airport. And to make a long night seem short, I didn't realize that certain ingredients were missing until the moments I actually needed them. This in turn had me running out as late as 11:15 to search out supplies (thank God for 24-hr grocery chains!). On a side note, how many people out there actually do all of their grocery shopping after 11:00 pm?? Based on what I saw, more than I would have expected and that was no plus for me standing in line with 2 items behind two shoppers with loaded carts! I think I may need to start storing vats of butter and sugar onsite from now on.

Anyways, by 2:00 am the cake was 98% complete. At 8:30 am I wrapped it up and she was ready to go. Yes I'm tired today, yes I would probably do things differently next time, and yes I'm happy with the way it turned out and I hope Sandy is too :)

All the best to Mercedes on her first holy communion! I'm honoured to have been a part of her special day if only by playing a very small part.