Turning A Dream Into A Reality
When I decided to retire from my 9–5 job, I found myself struggling to make sense of the days. Soon those days turned into weeks and then months, and I still had no idea how I wanted my "new me" to look.
At first, I treated retirement like an extended weekend—sleep in, read, watch TV. That novelty became hollow quickly. Without the rhythm of meetings, deadlines, and the predictable social checkpoints of an office, time stretched strangely. Mornings lost their purpose. Afternoons drifted. Evenings felt longer but emptier. Friends and family offered well-meaning advice: travel, volunteer, take up golf. I tried them, touched each idea briefly, and then moved on. None of it resonated. The problem wasn’t a lack of options; it was a lack of connection between those options and who I wanted to be now.
I realized I was treating retirement like a change in schedule rather than a chance to redefine identity. Work had been more than income; it was routine, competence, community, and a way to measure progress. Remove that scaffolding, and I had to build new ones. That felt both terrifying and promising.
I started small. Instead of forcing a dramatic reinvention, I began cataloging the pieces of myself that mattered—values, skills, curiosities—and the rhythms that made days feel meaningful. I asked three simple questions each morning: What would make today feel well spent? What can I do that uses a skill I enjoy? Who might I connect with? Some days the answers were modest: cook a meal from scratch, work on a forgotten craft project, work in the greenhouse repotting a plant or two.
Then it hit me.
An epiphany that should have come much sooner. I needed to find a purpose, daily therapy that not only gave me purpose but fueled that drive I once had. It was time to start baking again.
The idea settled in my chest like warmth from an oven—steady, inevitable. Baking had always been my quiet covenant with the world: precise measurements, the hum of the mixer, the slow alchemy of flour and heat transforming into something that soothed and sustained. I remembered the rhythm of it—the way my hands knew the weight of sugar and salt without looking, the familiar scent that cued the opening night of nerves and comfort. It was a craft that required focus and offered small, immediate rewards. It demanded presence.
I cleared the counter. The kitchen, for so long a backdrop to daily meals and family gatherings, became a laboratory of possibility. I pulled out my worn recipes, their edges softened from years of use, annotations in the margins—temperature tweaks, the addition of cardamom for a winter loaf, a note. Each scribble was a conversation with my former self, reminders that I had been someone who made things with care.
Baking gave me a structure that therapy never could replicate. There’s a discipline to proofing dough and timing the oven that doesn’t negotiate with mood. When you mix, you are literal: measure, fold, knead. The sensual feedback is immediate—dough that’s too wet, batter that needs a pinch more salt. Mistakes are instructive and sometimes delicious. Failures are never final; they are simply a next batch away.
On the first day back, I began small: a simple loaf of bread, rustic and unassuming. I weighed the flour on the scale and watched the yeast foam like a promise. Kneading became meditation—push, fold, turn—until the gluten sang under my palms. While it rose, I swept the floor, wiped the counters, set a kettle on the stove. The house filled with warmth and the soft, yeasty smell that sends an involuntary sigh through anyone who remembers home.
When I pulled the loaf from the oven, its crust a deep, golden hymn, I felt a fissure in the grayness of the past months. The first slice steamed in my hand. I tore it slowly and spread butter that melted like forgiveness. Each bite was a renewal: texture, flavor, proof that my hands could still coax goodness from simple things.
Baking became my barometer. I leaned on the slow comfort of sourdough, a ritual that demanded patience and rewarded it. I started keeping a baking journal—notes on hydration, adjustments for humidity, ideas for infusing herbs. Tiny entries accumulated into a map of regained competence and newfound curiosity.
It wasn’t just about making food. It was about reclaiming intent. I found that giving away a batch of cookies or a jam jar to a neighbor rewired my days. The act of creating and sharing stitched me back into the community I’d drifted from. Conversations returned—over clumsily cut slices shared on paper plates, over the way someone’s face softened at the first bite. Compliments and critiques alike grounded me.
The kitchen taught me lessons I took out into the world. Baking reminded me that time is an ingredient: some things must be waited on; rushing ruins them. It taught me humility—recipes don’t care about my pride—and resilience: dough can be rescued, batter can be refolded, a burnt edge can become crumble topping. Most of all, it reminded me that purpose can be found in small, steady actions done well.
Weeks turned into months. My measuring spoons lived on a hook by the mixer. I woke earlier, planning menus with the kind of anticipation I hadn’t felt in years. The drive returned not as a blinding force but as a warm current, steady and sustaining. I wasn’t chasing some dramatic reinvention; I was cultivating a life built around mindful creation.
One evening, as I turned the loaf for a second proof, I realized that the epiphany had been less about baking itself and more about permission. Permission to slow down, to care for something incremental, to let my hands tell the story my mind had been too busy to hear. The oven light shone through the window of the proofing box, and I thought of all the small, luminous moments I’d been denying myself.
Starting again was not a rescue mission or a cure. It was a decision to show up. To measure. To mix. To wait. And. after all that I made the ultimate decision to share all my creations with the public. I am now Bloomin’ Oven; the bakery that shares it’s space with the farm. I am now fully whole. Produce, microgreens, organic farm fresh eggs, the apiary, and now the bakery. A place where I can use all that comes from our farm and incorporate it into a delicious staple or a sweet treat to share with others in my community.
Come to our “table” to sample all that we have to offer. You will return time and time again. We are glad you are here and welcome your return.
