My life is measured in minutes: 8, sometimes 2, 1, and 5. On the line at the restaurant, we fire (bake) a chocolate spice cake for 8 minutes, which goes on our Chocolate Share Plate dessert. If a souffle trio is also ordered, then we set another timer for 2 minutes, after which we fire the chocolate souffle for 1 minute, then put the tangerine and chestnut rum souffles in the same oven for 5 minutes. In the meantime, we assemble the rest of the desserts, or arrange the items on the plate and call off minutes to each other so that we can get everything out at the same time. Those minutes add up to hours, and days. I'm extremely tired. I've got a pain in my left calf (it's ok, if it was my arm, I'd think heart attack!), I'm exhausted, my body hurts all over in general. I haven't gone home on time in about a week, and went in early a couple of days last week so that I could get a head start on production. I keep telling myself all I have to do is make it to Tuesday. And when things are crazy at work, I think, "I have to come back 2 more days?!?!?!"

Meanwhile, I'm not eating, cooking or baking anything worth posting about. I plan to bake some cookies and brownies for a bake sale for a cat shelter I used to volunteer for by Thursday. I also plan to make candies for Christmas; I got some cute little boxes for them in the email the other day. I've so many plans, all I need is the energy and time to carry them out.

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