Give me the good old days!

I'm on a bit of a rant... I love to bake, make candies, breads, cookies, preserves etc. I would love to make some money at it. No, I don't want to be the next Mrs. Fields with a store in every mall but just make some extra money doing something I like to do- from home. (We are financially strapped and I really feel burdened to help out- We are already scrimping and trying to be as frugal as possible.) But here, in the Land of the Free, it is difficult (at least in the states I've lived in) to sell any homemade food product. You can't sell what you make, legally, if you made it in a home kitchen. You can add a second kitchen in your home for business baking but no home cooking in it then. Excuse me? If I had the money to put a commercial kitchen in my home I probably wouldn't be needing to earn some extra money.

I could rent out a commercial kitchen (school, church etc.) but, uhm... then I wouldn't be at home! Like I want to drag all my children to a commercial kitchen. (Like the owners of said kitchen want my children there.) I'm a stay a home/home schooling mom by choice. I could easily put my kids in public school, send my youngest to day care and go get a job. I don't want that. But that is what the government would prefer I do.

By all means, let's keep importing cheap, shoddy, tainted goods from other countries and pass laws to keep our own citizens protected from themselves. We wouldn't want the average American to get ahead.

It just makes me long for the days where if you had an idea, you just did it. You didn't have to jump through hoops or take out horrendous business loans to make it happen.

Okay, stepping off the soap box now.