So... since December 2nd I am happy to report that I have sent AT LEAST one piece of happy dandelion snail mail each and every day, Saturdays and Sundays, too! Most days I sent out several. I have sent packages to two friends with cancer. I am hoping to send two to three a week for both of them for the duration of their chemotherapy, at least. Something fun to take their minds off their problems for a few minutes!! (Mail can be so fun when it isn't bad news!) I have sent several swaps and tags for Swap-bot. I have sent five prizes for the facebook page I run for my husband's restaurant (I'm counting those, but they all went out on the same day, along with two REAL pieces of mail. :) I even sent out an Etsy order! And a few random- but fun- letters and postcards, too.
AND... for one FULL week I was completely bedridden with the flu. Ugh, down for the count. SO weak and achey and feverish. I am not certain how I got mail out on those days. Well, two of the days I already had something prepared, just had to get it out. And the others... I was simply determined not to quit the very first week I was doing it! I'll quit later if need be, but not already!
I have been thinking about my New Year's resolutions. I would be thinking about them anyway, I guess, but I am hosting a swap concerning them, so I need to actually SET some. It occurred to me that most years I can't really look back and say Oh THAT'S what I did this year! So this year I am going to do several things. I'm going to try to choose a character trait to improve. I'm going to continue my snailmail 365 effort. And I am going to work towards getting a cookbook published.
For years I have been trying to perfect my cookie recipes, thinking maybe one day I will have the courage to open a bakery or something. But honestly, I am just not sure I DO, or ever will. And getting the recipes down, accurately, everything listed correctly and measured properly... this takes work, which has to be done well before any store can be opened. I have decided that besides the Dandelion SnailMail 365 (how cute!), which is really just for fun, I am going to attempt 52 cookie recipes. Initially it sounded SO easy to do. I bake cookies all the time anyway, frequently more than one batch a week... I will simply perfect one recipe a week. Then I started really thinking about it. That means sometimes I will need to try a recipe again and again in one week, to get it right. Or what if it never measures up... do I still count it as an attempt? Or do I have to double up the next week?? It's REALLY quite a few cookies.
Here is what I have come up with: I will attempt one recipe a week, starting with my own personal favorites, which are the result of YEARS of practice and alteration. Frankly, they rock. It's not ME, except that I have made thousands of batches of cookies. Anyone with four cookie-loving kids, that has made thousands of batches of cookies, and corrected and improved bad recipes over the years, baked and ate and changed and baked and ate... will have awesome cookie recipes. I WANT to share them, but I don't want to just give them away. I have put so much into them! And I feel like they are one of the few things I have that are really MINE.
So... I will spend 2011 getting them RIGHT, and trying lots of new ones, too...and hopefully by this time next year I will have a really good start on a supercool-no-fail-cookie cookbook. Cookies anyone can make, with tips and hints I've developed over the years for making really awesome special cookies.
I need a countdown meter on the side of my blog. Two, actually. How do I do that??
And if one of you is a cookbook publisher, I'd really appreciate you giving some of my recipes a shot! Once they are ready, that is. I'll meet you here, the same time next year.
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