Buttercream Dreams
I’m enjoying the first taste of Texas fall on the back porch of our home in the country taking in the quiet even as I’m simmering with excitement. My dream of creating a baking business is slowly becoming my full blown, real life work and I feel the sort of peaceful happiness that I knew would come from truly loving what I do.
I dream in buttercream.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to make people happy. We all have different gifts and desires, but mine has always been fairly simple, I love to make people smile. I knew one day I would create a life that allowed me to use my creativity to deliver happiness to others.
As a little girl I would pick wildflowers and give them to my mother and grandmothers just to feel the warmth of their appreciation as their smiles beamed back at me. My playhouse was my first home bakery where I would create mudpies to present to my family and each time they humored my efforts with perfect pretend excitement. As soon as I could climb up on a stool or sit at our little wooden play table I began experimenting with recipes and baking sweets. One day when I was in High School my Dad came in from work to a kitchen laden with hundreds of sugar cookies and exclaimed, “Why, it’s a cookie factory!”. Little did he know how prophetic that comment would be!
My mother cut out shortbread cookies and my grandmothers butter cookies were my favorite to mold and make. So naturally when my children came along, they became my eager helpers as we made and molded delicious cookies in our Dallas kitchen. Baby Lizzy would sit in a sink full of bubbles as Margaret and George stood on stools rolling out and molding delicious dough. Our favorite recipe, the buttercream thumbprint, became a favorite among family and friends and were a featured project at our annual “cookie day”. Cookie day was a flour filled day full of sprinkles, icing and love with my best friends and their children coming to bake and leaving with full hearts and overflowing platters of Holiday cookies. Later I would bring silver trays full of cookies to every occasion along with beautiful floral arrangements to adorn lavish buffets at the homes of my loved ones. Those friends and my family encouraged me to start a business with my perfected recipes and creative floral arrangements during a turning point in my life, and I have never looked back. Each day as I pursue my buttercream dreams, I am thankful for those who believed in me first. This blog is dedicated to you.
Today I am reflecting on the thousands of cookies that have cheered so many hearts during good times and bad. I am humbled as I think of all of the women and the orphaned children we have been able to help through mission trips and charitable giving. I’m in awe of the fact that one of my daughters is my business partner, the same one that sat in the bubbly sink so many years ago watching me create in the kitchen. My hope is that as you enjoy your cookies and flowers you feel the love that we have for our clients and that you know how thankful we are for you. My anticipation of what lies ahead for One Pink Cookie already exceeds my wildest buttercream dreams.