So, I mentioned that your mama started a venture recently...
Sadly, I don't make enough money to set aside as much money every month for your college fund as I would like. We have bills to pay and truth be told, I'm nowhere near as frugal as I should be considering how much I don't make. So, knowing these things about our situation, I decided to mix a dash of something I need (money for your college fund) with a sprinkle of something I love to do (baking cookies). The result: Panhandle Cookie Company! Your mama is bakin' some cookies to give you the sweetest start in life possible!
The name Panhandle Cookie Company results from the English translation of our last name from it's original language. Yep, we're panhandles! I've known for years that I have a very decent cookie-baking skill. Your great grandma, whom you were named for, had this AMAZING sugar cookie recipe all through my childhood. I would salivate uncontrollably when she would whip up a batch and at a very early age I was in the kitchen making the cookies with her. Someday soon, you'll be my little sous-baker, too! I've made these cookies for YEARS for special events and always received gushing compliments. A couple of years ago I found an amazing peanut butter cookie recipe that garnered the same attention as the sugar cookies. I started getting REALLY interested in the little intricacies of what makes a cookie recipe the BEST COOKIE RECIPE EVER! Little tweaks here and there, some science, some creativity... all have led to your mama being pretty savvy in the kitchen when it comes to baking.
Being on my MRC diet the first time around meant that I couldn't really do my craft because who on earth bakes cookies and doesn't eat half of the batch herself in one sitting??? Right?? (Yeah, never do that.) When I got off of my MRC diet b/c I was pregnant, I started baking again and remembered how much I loved doing it! Now that I'm back on the diet, I've come up with a genius plan! I'm going to bake cookies and sell them to raise money for your college fund! I get to do what I love, but the cookies don't sit around tempting me with their chewy deliciousness. Win-win!
I already have the talent, the delicious recipes, the drive, and the captive audience (the people who shop at your dad's business downtown), all I needed to do was start! I started selling a couple of batches at an event held at your dad's business. They were wildly popular and gone within a few days! I made another batch, they sold out within the week. And another... they sold out, too! Each week since then the cookies have sold within the week, meaning I'm making a new batch about every Thursday night now.
In the roughly 4 weeks I've been baking cookies as Panhandle Cookie Company, I've made about 10 dozen cookies and sold through nearly all of them! Your savings account will be opened very soon! Now, I'm not going to lie... you WILL be spending this money on college and not booze. Mama doesn't plan on scooping a million cookies by the time you're 18 years old just for you to blow it on something stupid! These cookies have a purpose. Their purpose is for you to pay for as much of your college as I possibly can so you can start your life out in the real world with little to no debt. If you can get scholarships for being an awesome student throughout high school, any extra money left over after paying the difference for college can be used to put a down payment on a home.
You see, I didn't have these things. I've been out of college for 9 years now and I will still be paying for my college education 11 years from now. 20 years of my life will be spent paying for something that I did for four years. Do I regret it? Of course not! Do I wish I could have had another way to do it so I didn't have all of this debt? You betcha. This is what I want for you. I will do whatever I can to make your education as accessible to you as possible even if it means I'll never want to bake or eat another cookie again in my entire life!
My only regret is that I didn't start sooner!
I will update on how Panhandle Cookie Company is doing from time to time. Until then, let's get that savings account open and let it start drawing some awesome interest, yes? Woo hoo!
