getting started

I'm Sara, and I need some new goals. Four and a half years ago, I started to drastically alter my life. I went from a boozing, apartment renting, roommate having, single waitress, (not a complaint or sign of sad life, I loved being a boozy, renting, single waitress/roommate,) to falling for a man with prospects. This was new for me, and it made me want some prospects of my own. Flash forward to today, and I now find that I've traded my best friend-roommate for the love of my life, Ryan, and all his prospects, my rented apartment for the condo we own, with our two dogs Winston Churchill & Betty Davis, my booze for – ok, there's still a fair amount of booze, but it ends earlier; and my waitressing job for the bistro I opened a few years ago. In the process of all this change, I've been busy, too busy. I've lost all my hobbies – my personal growth – in my professional growth. All my plans, learning to knit, joining a book club, running a 5K, none of them have been accomplished. This changes today. I'm starting with cupcakes. Although I can't cook a lick, I've discovered I'm actually a pretty good baker. Not great, but good, and I'm about to get better. I'm going to perfect my cupcakes, week by week, style by style, one delicious morsel after another. I'll go for one year, and 52 types of cakes from now, I should have one hell of a recipe, a new skill, a new hobby, and ideally a new goal to start on next year. However, I need to set some boundaries. I'll tackle a new type of cupcake each week, baking two batches each week, one at the start and one at the end. Each one is from scratch only, no cake mix starters here. And there have to be some changes in the recipe from the beginning of the week to the end, trying to improve, trying to find the best methods, so advice is welcome. However, do you think I need to create every ingredient? For instance, I have some cheesecake cupcakes with apricot preserves that I'm going to try this fall, do I need to make the preserves? Or does it vary by the difficulty/simplicity of said ingredient? I have another hazelnut truffle recipe, and I wouldn't even know where to begin with making those. And many call for graham crakers, which I can make, but it seems like an awful waste of time. And there's no giving up. Even if the only readers are Lynn, Marie, Baronness and my mother, I still keep going. See you Monday.