Why none of my clothes are fitting me right now.....

My friend Jen and I wanted to do something to raise money for the Red Cross specifically for the Japan Earthquake/Asia Pacific Tsunami efforts.  And because Jen is such a great baker and I am not, we decided to have an Easter bake sale.

The first point of business was finding the perfect location.  We needed lots of customers.  Hungry customers.  We thought about churches (neither of us belong to a church so that was a no).  We were thinking about my office which was a possibility.  But we put the request in first at Jen's "office" which just happens to be Pearson Airport.  You see when she is not baking, Jen is a flight attendant for Air Canada.  In fact, many people probably don't know this about me, but I was a flight attendant for Air Canada for one summer right out of university.  That's how Jen and I met, on the first day of training.  I'm not sure why but when she walked into the class I practically yelled "Come sit next to ME!" And she's not sure why, but she did.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Anyway, Jen was able to get us permission to sell in the Air Canada employee area.  Over the course of a day, there are probably hundreds of flight attendants, pilots, ramp attendants and ticket/gate agents that pass through the area so we had the perfect customer base for our sale.

Most of the baking was done by Jen over 2 weeks.  I was able to help out on weekends but unfortunately Jen and I live really far apart.  But maybe it is fortunate, any closer and I'd be over at her house begging for cookies on a daily basis.  Just the weekends of tasting and more tasting has made me the opposite of ready for summer clothes.  I'll still be wearing my fat winter sweaters in July thanks to this sale.

Baking, packaging, transporting.  A lot goes into a bake sale.  The day of the sale was pretty exciting.  We were up at 5am and at the airport setting up by 6.  Jen's husband Mike and two lovely employees of Air Canada Carin and Mike helped us set everything up.

I wish we had more pictures, but we were too busy selling to take very many!  Jen has some more on her blog post here.  We had planned to sell from 7am to 3pm but by 12:30 we had sold out of everything!  People were so generous and kind.  Jen and I agonized over pricing, which is funny because many people told us to keep the change, or would just give us an extra $5 for the cause.  One woman came by and told us "I gave up sweets for Lent, but I just want to give you this", and handed us $20.

Doing something like this reminds you of the kindness of people.

At the end of the day we had raise $1461 for the Canadian Red Cross.

Dave contributed to this total by selling $100 worth of cookies at his office for us.

Many thanks to:

Carin Brown and Mike Trauzzi
The employees of Air Canada for their support as well as our friends and families
Dave's co-workers at RBC
Jen's mom, Paty
Jen's husband, Mike
Dave

Not to brag, but I'm pretty proud of Jen and myself.  I guess that is bragging.
Oh well.

Yum Yum

I wish I had a talent.   You know, like to be super amazing at something.  I'm not fishing for compliments here, I don't need you, my friends, to post comments like "Well remember when you got 98% in ninth grade typing" or "Remember you scored Perfect for Viva La Vida at karaoke" (both true).  But the truth is, I'm generally just "okay" at a lot of things, "good" at some things, and "really good" at one or two things (ie Viva la Vida at Karaoke and typing) and its gotten me through life okay so far.

Now my friend Jen is an AMAZING baker.  You might remember her from such hits as "My Wedding Cake":

Both beautiful and tasty, you know how you're supposed to save the top layer for a year?
Dave and I ate it the next week....but really who wants a year old, freezer burnt cake?

And "My Wedding cookie Favours"

Don't get me started on my wedding photographers
Yes, so artsy--cookies by a dirty window

When I asked for cookies for my niece who really likes princesses:

And when I asked her for cookies as a thank you for people who sponsored me in a run (okay for me it was more like a walk) for cancer that I did for my dad:

I was just kind of thinking round cookies with thank you written on them.

See what I mean about talented?

Anyways, she's is doing a little Xmas giveaway on her blog here for six of these bad boys:

Yummy gingerbread snowflakes

I thought I would dilute my chances of winning by letting everyone in on it.  Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.  I've already distributed my winnings in my head, "one for Dave, five for me!"  See, its probably better if I don't win.  

While you're there, check out her other cakes and cookies.  And then take solace in the fact that you were the fastest, most error free typist in your ninth grade class.