Happy Anniversary to me!!!!
Today marks the first year of being a self employed cafe owner. This year has gone unbelievably fast. I just wrote a list of 25 random things about myself and one thing that I wrote was "I love what I do but I question it everyday if it is the right thing to do right now". I mean the kids are still kind of young. Sometimes I do miss out on things I wouldn't have to miss if I didn't own a cafe. I think I would still be working though. I tell myself that at least I am 2 minutes from their school and if something happens I can be there in, that's right, 2 minutes. My two younger girls comes up to the cafe for lunch most days, sometimes that is a bit stressfull when we are busy but it is great to connect a little in the middle of the day.

Yesterday was a funny day at Beaches Bake Shop. It started with me not "feeling up for it at all". Would have preferred to stay in bed and take care of my voice, cough and throat. Since that was not an option I went to St. Lawrence Market. Jojo came with me, she is the biggest trouper there is! We picked up the 25dz bagels and went back to the cafe. I decided to make SEMLOR. I made some earlier in the week and the weekend before so I was hoping people would remember. To recap the day in a semla kind of way we sold about 25!! That is a great number. I have orders for more and I love it. I am convinced we should market ourself as a Swedish Cafe. There was 2 groups of swedes that came in and they were just as excited as I was back in the mid 90's when I found something authentic. They were blown away how "real" the choklad biskvier and of course the Semlor tasted. It totally made my day! Something not so funny about yesterday was when I went downstairs to the womens washroom and noticed the switch plate for the light switch missing. SOMEONE STOLE IT!!!! Granted it was cute, Andy Warhol's Cambell Soup look alike. The screws were screwed back in after removing the plate-INSANE!!!

Now the question is YOGA or not. I think YOGA. I feel almost healed from my little stint of being sick- loosing my voice etc. so I really should get going!

A long day with rain coming down sideways has passed. The girls are disappointed, no skiing today and the weather does not look promising for tomorrow either. Mark went back to the city for a footballgame in Detroit tomorrow.....he'll be back up tomorrow night. Even if the rain continues tomorrow we have to come up with something to do other than relaxing- even though it has been nice and way toooo long since we had a day of nothing. Keeping my fingers crossed for some cold weather and snow!

This is not what I should be doing at this point but what the heck....it is 07.10 and I just got back from a good run with LeighAnne. We have the best runs!!!We met at 05.45 and ran for just over 1 hour. Is there a better feeling than finishing up an hour run in the early morning?? Don't think so.
The rest of my day will be spent inside mostly. The cafe was not very busy yesterday so hopefully it picks up today. We re planning for christmas. The oven is still NOT totally hooked up and it is starting to bug me. I want to bake in Garry the GARLAND oven NOW!!!
Mark is in Buffalo, N.Y. He went there yesterday with some friends to see a football game. He called from the parking lot where they had a tailgate party. The menu was canned chili- yum!I remember when we went to Detroit to watch a soccer game Sweden- Brasil and Mark wanted too have tailgate party in the parking lot. I thought he gone mad. I didn't know what a tailgate party was and he didn't know that when you so to a soccergame you can't waist time in the parking lot.
Ok, my day has to get started. What I would pay for a day just at home with nothing special to do! It would be soooo nice, specially now when the cold has hit Toronto. I think it is -3 right now, Ok, bye for now!

Ok, who timed their vacation so perfectly this year????? I did, believe it or not but since we closed the cafe on Saturday afternoon the sun has not left the sky during the day. It is beautiful in Toronto these days. Perfect temperature and I am so happy we decided to stay home these 2 weeks. We had talked about driving to Oklahoma, or driving out east in Canada, which is very popular to do but a few weeks ago we realized that the most relaxing thing is probably to stay right here in our own backyard. That leads me to tell you about Mark's latest accomplishment, he just finished building a new deck in the back of our house. So, that is where I am sitting right now writing this. I LOVE IT!!
Another reason why we stayed home is that we have a fourth girls staying with us right now. It is Laura from France. She is an exchange student and will go to school with Sigrid for 5 weeks or so. Her total stay is 2 months and she arrived just over a week ago.
We went to Prince Edward County for 2 nights. I have been wanting to go there for a long time. The highlight was definitely a meal we had at Harvest. A restaurant I can recommend to anyone. The waiter we had was Jason and he was an ex Beach'er who had just moved to Picton. He was very knowledgeable and seemed to be a very nice guy as well.
On Monday we wanted to something special since it was Laura's 13th birthday so what is better to do than go for a few scary rides in a huge amusement park. Here in Toronto the destination for that is Canadas Wonderland. What a place. It is enormous with lots of rides, both scary and not so scary. They also have an amazing water park that the kids enjoyed a lot. I think we will get season passes for next year. It is definitely worth it.
Mark took daughter 2 and 3 back to Prince Edward County for a night of camping with his sisters and parents. They are on their way back now and it sounds like they had a great time.
I gently forced the bigger girls to do some exercise this morning and biked to my favourite place in Toronto, St. Lawrence Market. It is a 30 minute bike ride and it was a bit windy coming back. We bought some fresh seasonal berries and a piece of horseradish. I am hoping to do some pickling but I couldn't find the dill you use for that. Is it called crown dill in english???
That was my post for today, I am going up to Sigrid's room to finish building an IKEA dresser. I do well with IKEA building stuff usually but this morning I had to step away and take a brake.......
I will be back with more pictures but as always, let me know if you have been by to read my blog! Enjoy the last bits and pieces of summer 2008!

A great weekend is a balanced weekend and this weekend was just that! We have been to 2 Christmas parties, kids have had down time, we got to spend some time alone and on top of that we actually got some stuff done. Sigrid played basketball for 4 hours on Saturday and today she had one of her oldest friends over and they baked up a storm while Mark took the 2 other girls to a tree farm up north to cut down a tree. Now we have a decorated home, a Christmas tree in the corner and all the laundry is almost done. It was a scary sight this morning. I don't think the laundry mountain had reach the same altitude before...I have to post this really quick now because I have to plan for taste-buddies this week. I also have a catering job on Friday that needs some attention as well. Anyway have a great week!

The last few weeks I have been a REAL stay- at- home- mother. It has been pretty good. It's nice to not have something to rush off to and have hanging over you. But the downside is that you don't have anything to rush off to and to hang on to......sounds weird? It is, let me tell you!
I love the fact that I have seen my oldest daughters 2 volleyball games this week, I had time to really sit dowm and help middle daughter with her monthly writing assignment without feeling like everything around me was falling into pieces. I had time to listen to my 6 year olds suggestion to start a COOKING CLUB for her and her friends. I had so much time that I got really hooked on that idea and have a call into a church that apparently has a great kitchen. Will talk to them tomorrow, hopefully. The more I think about it the better it sounds. Am I right??? As far as I know there is nothing like that in this part of the world. There is lots of gymnastic places for kids and art places but no Cooking School for kids! I definitely think I am on to something. Husband is still away so I have not bounced the idea off him yet. He just keeps sending us pictures from the french, Italian or swiss mountains and him skiing and so on......we are here in a wintery Toronto going about our regular business. I kind of like my regular business, especially now when I have something little "hanging over me" again!!! It is just fun to brainstorm, plan and hope!
We met a new little friend yesterday. A little girl, 3 days old, who has a sister, Jojo's best friend. You definitely forget how incredibly tiny they are. She was soooo cute. Welcome to the world Lauren!!

So I think in Anna's perfect world I wouldn't want to miss much of my kids life but I definitely want my own thing going somehow!!!
I do actually have 1 or 2 catering jobs coming up next month as well so I think I'll be ok!
Thanks Ginetta for stopping by my blog and leaving a nice long comment!!! When are we getting together again??