Thanks, Gemini! I was just worried I myself had come across not supporting SweetDreams. I may not have had the fortune to meet any of the handful of cookie friends I have made here, but I would be aghast had I not come across supporting them, so thanks for your message.
Along other lines, I have been thinking a lot about this post.. a lot. Last night something came to me that I wanted to share. Although it appears that some of us are stopping short of our dream to take our cookies to the level of getting legal or are pulling back on orders/stopping taking orders, etc., I wanted to add a thought along these lines (if anyone is even seeing this
).
Raising our children is temporary. Of course, they will always need us (or so I like to think), but our time will free up later in life. Taking orders, getting legal and all that goes along with that in most states, may not be something that works now in some of our lives, but the key is that we all do not know what is around the corner. Dont give up on your dream, but realize it is temporarily on hold and
look to what will be, whether it be a book in the future, someday getting legal, being a cookie designer for a shop or perhaps even owning a little cookie store or whatever you dream of.
This is personal, but I am putting it out there in case it helps someone else. I have been dealing with two things that have brought about a great deal of angst for me. The first thing is finding a balance. Someone read this posting and PMed me asking if I was stopping cookie-ing all together. The answer is no, as my issue is that I need to find a balance, not stop all together. If I did, I think I would shrivel up and that would be no good to myself or my family and I have a feeling there are others who may feel this way to. I need my niche, but I personally need to balance it, which is not what I myself was doing. This posting reaffirmed what was right in front of my eyes that I needed to say No, I am sorry. I cant do that vice running on the continual hamster wheel of cookie-ing. I also see that I need to step back from the vision I had for the level I could take this to and re-evaluate and bring it down to a level that worked with the family. Seeing this posting and what others are doing has helped me to do that. It is like when you see a couple and you think they have the perfect marriage and then one confides in you that it actually isnt all peaches and cream. I remember the first time I came across decorated cookies. It was on Kneadacookies website. I thought, Wow! Look what she is doing! I have always looked to her as someone who really has it going great. Now I see that she is like me, struggling to juggle it all and I see others are feeling the same. Seeing what everyone has written has helped me not be so hard on myself.
The second issue is I may lose my little dream owning my own business. We find out in Sept. if we are moving and realistically, that would kill that dream. I do not do quantity cookies and therefore cannot justify renting kitchen space and most places we would move to do not allow for home based bakeries. Admittedly, that really affected me. My niche poof gone and all that was wrapped up in that for my sense of self (I told you I was putting myself on the line here).
But, once I pulled myself out of my wallowing, I decided that if this is the case and we do move, it will only be for two years and then we may well be back. I plan to take that time to develop my cookie portfolio more and expand my designs. Okay, the overly time-intensive tropical fish cookie I just posted was fun, but really, who needs that? I need to design cookies that would be more realistic for selling. So that is my plan. Or if we dont come back, maybe I will design cookies for a bakery, like Gemini's great idea (which I could completely see her doing!). I dont know what path I will take, but I know that it would not be good for me to shelve the whole idea.
I only write this to encourage all of us to
remember that we all dont know what opportunities are around the corner. Many times you read of people who just kind of fell into something that they did not expect at all. Keep designing, photograph your work and dont lose sight of your talent. I will never write a book, but I tell you I would buy one from SweetDreams and Bakinccc in a heartbeat. I don't think that was in their original plan, but I could completely see that coming to pass in the future. The bottom line is to hold tight to your talent and even if it isn't working out as you may have envisioned right now, none of us really know what our future holds and I tell you, there is an incredible amount of talent here. Just don't lose sight of it.
Who knows what the future holds for either of us - maybe someday we can have a pic of the two of us on the front porch of our own little shop like we mused about a while ago. Now 
BUT, i once was where you are now! I did cakes a long time ago, when my girls were 4 or 5 yrs.old. i stopped because i always felt like i was missing out on their adventures and trials!
