JESSICA MAKEUP: BAKED! (Totally Legal! Haha)

Attempt #2 for earning some glaminar money down and this time it was a success!

One of the other things my pesky self-confidence will allow me to admit that I'm good at is baking. A few years ago (in college, while taking French courses), I took a trip to Paris.

See?? That's me at the Palace of Versailles

To take that trip, I used all of the money I had put back in savings, I found some sponsors, and I put together a bake sale at my Aunt's salon. I found it to be a fairly lucrative venture.

Why not do it again?

Thursday, I went to work then came home at 7:30. I ate my dinner, then napped until about 11:00PM. That's when I got up and started baking like crazy! I baked brownies. I baked banana bread. I baked strawberry, blueberry, strawberry cheesecake, and chocolate chip muffins. And I baked chocolate chip, sugar, and peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies. I would've done some cupcakes (my baking specialty), but if you've ever been outside in the south in the middle of July, you'll know it's really, really hot. Icing would melt like nobody's business. Anyway, I busted my little booty baking and baking and bagging up each sweet treat until about 3:00AM (Okay, it wasn't that bad, really. I kept it kind of small because I wasn't sure how it would go. How often do you find bake sales outside of elementary school?) Then I jumped in the shower and got myself dressed for work. Made it to work by 4:30AM Friday morning. Left there by 9:30AM, drove my 30 minutes home, whipped together a big "BAKE SALE" poster, changed into some appropriate southern summer clothes, got my things together, dropped my dog off at my mom's (I haven't mentioned my puppy. She's my baby... a sassy little black and white shih tzu. My mom has a little black and white maltipoo and they play together, so cute!), grabbed some lunch, and headed out to my bake sale location.

My step-dad's brother (my step-uncle?) runs a gas station and he let me set up there. I was set up and ready to go buy noon.

It was slow starting and miserably hot and I started thinking it had been a bad idea. About an hour and a half later, I shifted from my spot near the road to right in front of the gas tanks, near the road. I roped in a few more customers that way. About thirty minutes after that, my step-dad's sister (my step-aunt?) who works at the store came out and asked me why on earth I was out there under the sun. She helped me move my table close to the door of the store and into the shade.

I stayed there until about 5:30 yesterday afternoon (even ran into my very first boyfriend, whom I haven't seen in almost 10 years). I sold nearly everything I baked and probably would've sold all of it if I had stuck it out another hour or so. But, I was sunburned and hot and sticky from sweat.

Not to mention, when people found out why I was sitting out there and doing the sale, they'd give me some money just to help out and they wouldn't take any treats! I was suprised how often that happened. It touched my heart to see people being so generous. During the daily grind, you find so many people who are ill and unhappy and frustrated and we're all guitly of feeling that way, but it's really nice and uplifting when you find so many people who just want to help you out, even when they don't get anything in return for it. There were even three or four people who gave me $5 bills and wouldn't take anything! $5 might not sound like a lot of money to a lot of people, but it's a GIGANTIC help to me... and they add up! So nice of those people to do. I felt like saying "thank you" was not enough! I wish I could find each of those people and do something nice for them in return.

So, like I said before, the bake sale was a success! Next weekend I'm going to do another one. And I'm probably going to keep it up every weekend, switching up my locations, at least until the glaminar, and maybe even on after that to put some money towards cosmetology school.

I've already got plans for Attempt #3: YARD SALE! Planned for August 7th. There's so much to do! Organizing and pricing, and I've had some friends and family donate some things for me to sell, so I have to get that organized and find some tables and put an ad in the paper for it. AH! So much to do! Will update on it soon!