faith and fairy dust: Bliss-Following: Barb Mazur, Pastry Queen and so much more...

Barb Mazur: Pastry Queen and Photographer

My first memories of Barb Mazur are mostly just a blur of red hair [- her gorgeous red hair makes mine look annoyingly brown.] We met in college, living in the same all-girls house at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She was both motivated and busy! She had two jobs, I think? And she took her studies WAY more seriously than I took mine :) I remember being in our house's dining room eating lunch - and seeing Barb across the room: simultaneously scarfing her lunch and reading a textbook, then running out the door - to work or class, one of the two. I remember thinking, "This girl is getting things done!" Haha.

Turns out that this busy lady was also one of the sweetest, most fun people I've met! She parties with the best of 'em, laughs with the best of 'em, and generally is just a delight to spend time with.

Fast-forward to post-college life (and a Masters degree in Accountancy), and Barb of course got herself into a great job. A Finance Manager for a printing company, Barb spent seven years working hard until she realized it was time for a change... and true to form, sprung into action. After an aptitude test, some self-analyzation, and some planning - and finally, Barb did what we all dream of doing:

She quit her job to travel the world and reinvent herself. And she'd saved enough money ahead of time, that she could actually do it worry-free.

What impresses me the most about this is not that Barb had the courage to do it, it's that she had the practical planning in place so that she could do it. See - to me, there are usually two types of people: the kind who are artsy and creative, and the kind that are practical and methodical. Barb somehow is both - and I admire the shit out of her for it :)

In her time as a 9-5'er, she'd developed an affinity for both pastry-making and for photography. Her master plan in quitting her job and travel the world was to take in the world, but also to learn whatever she could during her travels to get her on a path to make a living doing both these things.

So last September, Barb rented out her condo, moved her stuff home to her parent's home, and then jumped on a plane. In four months, visited Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, England, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. (To further display my point about Barb - when I asked her to email me all the places she'd traveled, I expected just a list in an email, and instead I got an Excel spreadsheet of every city and the exact dates she was there.) This girl is somethin' else :)

So what now, you might ask? Miss Thang is back to being busy here in Chicagoland. She'll be attending the French Pastry School in July - and in the meantime is doing everything you can think of. She's staging at different restaurants (a culinary term for shadowing a chef - pastry chefs, in her case), she taking and teaching photography classes, doing yoga, spending time with friends and family, AND freelancing in making cakes/cookies/pastries or snapping photos - for anyone who's interested. Which, hell, might be you. Cuz I'll tell you what, you guys - she's GOOD. (I'll post some photos of her work below.)

As my readers know, my goal with this Bliss-Following business is to help perpetuate the dreams and visions of people I admire - people that are putting their ALL into the universe. And Barb certainly is. She said to me once, "I don't want any what-if's in my life." How wise :)

The below picures (which are items she cooked and photographed) I'm sure will inspire you to drop her an email and say, "I'd like to hire you to do something awesome for me."