This post doesn’t contain my “secret,” but it doesn’t contain a detail a few of you have been begging me to reveal!
What the heck is the status of Fanny & Jane this holiday season?
The short answer: We’re not opening the bakery for the 2010 holidays. Waaah!! I know, I know.
Here’s why:
When I left my desk job on October 16, 2009, I hadn’t completely decided what I was going to do next. Among other things, I’d spent the year prior laying the ground work for Fanny & Jane with my friend Faryn. In fact, before I quit my job we’d already put a lot of work into the bakery and had even been able to provide sweets for a number of local events and private orders.
But I just wasn’t sure what I could realistically do with the bakery full-time when I finally left my day job. I didn’t have enough money (or an investor) available to do something really big.
Once I stopped working though, I realized I could probably earn an income by taking as many sweet treat orders as I could personally handle during the 2009 Holiday Season. Since I didn’t have any other income lined up, I decided to go for it! And you were all along for the ride. As I’ve said many times, it was a great experience, and also a terribly challenging one. Kevin, I and many of our friends worked night and day in the few weeks leading up to Christmas. As I tend to do, I bit off more than I could chew.
After the holiday rush and a much needed vacation, we started baking again in 2010, until we finally announced we’d be taking a hiatus for the summer months.
It’s now October 2010 and we’ve decided it’s still not the right time for us. Last Christmas we were worked to the bone and we just haven’t done enough planning or research this year to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Kevin and I have looked into companies called packers that will bake and ship your sweets for you. That’s definitely an option we intend to consider down the line. But even to launch something like that for this season is just not in the cards for us right now. We’re both intently focused on other aspects of our careers right now, and so is Faryn - there’s a lot else going on. You get the idea.
I hope you haven’t seen the last of Fanny & Jane. I have big ideas for what this company could be and maybe we’ll go for them someday. (And if you have any thoughts or input, I’d love to hear from you!) We still get emails all the time asking about the status of the bakery and we’re so flattered! Maybe Christmas 2011. We’ll see. You’ll be the first to know.
And so, as my 30th birthday approaches, and my one-year anniversary of quitting my job approaches, I’m reflecting on the fact that the last year has been about quitting my job, opening a bakery and realizing I don’t want to be a hands-on owner and operator of my own small food business. That’s invaluable information for me to have about myself. And I’m not ashamed at the discovery – I feel lucky to have learned it before I got myself into a sticky situation. (Pun.)
So if I’m not going to be a baker in 2011, what AM I going to do? It’s time to set some new goals. Eep! How terrifying and exciting.
