The calender has turned and 2009 is marching on. I want to lodge a complaint — stop it; I am not organized enough for that yet! (Hmm, is there a board to whom I can submit that complaint?)

Plus Iʼm still ruminating over resolutions; argh! Iʼm not a fan of the resolution, mainly because I am rarely successful with them & I hate being reminded that I am coming up short when I was the only one who knew where the bar was set!

So I have decided to join my wise friend Johnʼs fasting plan for the new year. My fast of choice is media, because the idea is to give up something meaningful. I find myself listening to the news and reading the paper and my heart starts to palpitate and my breathing feels tight and I begin to wonder how many relatives I might be able to house and how long we can live on beanie-weanies and before long IAMCALCULATINGHOWLONGITWILLTAKEMETORIDETOWORKONMYBIKEAFTER
ISELLMYCAR. I want to put my fingers in my ears and start singing “LALALALALALA.”

Instead of joining the frenzy, I commit right now to finding people who are creative in these tight times, rising above the mele and giving the rest of us inspiration!  To that end, I share my newest obsession, Bakerella.

In case you are one of the two people on earth not following Pioneer Woman, you might have missed Bakerella in PWʼs sidebar. (I particularly love PWʼs cooking site, because itʼs real food for real people – those of us who prefer to eat instead of be thin.) And since I am devoted, I immediately followed up on the teasing photos of Bakerellaʼs site.

I love to cook, but I am so not a baker. This site so makes me want to change my ways Her creations are not just food, they are D-E-S-I-G-N! I attempted to stalk her, but sheʼs very elusive. (I chalk that up to her focus on her art.) But she was kind enough to answer a few questions.

Your profile says you took a baking class in 2007. Was that your first experience
with baking, or have you always loved it?

“I donʼt remember my first, but Iʼve always loved baking. Probably because I love eating
the results!”

Where do you find the inspiration for the products that you bake?

“I find inspiration all around me. From a pillow pattern in a catalogue I used for a cake
design to a plastic coca-cola bottle I used for a snow globe cupcake.”

Do you sell your baked goods?

“Nope. I sell some t-shirts, though.”

What is your favorite experience with baking since you began?

“My favorite was probably when I took the cake decorating class. I canʼt remember the
last time I was so genuinely happy and excited all at the same time.”

What gave you the idea to start a blog?

“I added some cupcake photos to a cupcake photo group on flickr.com. Then, I just
decided to start the blog to keep track of my baking experiences. I never expected
people to actually find my stuff.”

When were you on The Martha Stewart Show, and how did Martha find you?

“It was an episode in April of 2007, for Cupcake Week. One of her producers found my
blog and contacted me.”

What are your plans for the future with Bakerella?

“Iʼm open. Definitely more baking and hopefully a book.”

In several recent postings on her site, Bakerella features some jaw-dropping sugar cookies. She used terms I had never heard – “flooding” & “piping,” just to mention a few. She mentions as her guide a book called, “Cookie Craft.” I ordered it from Amazon in the next blink of my eye, and the pictures in it make me want to abandon my life and find a job as a cookie flooder. Ahhh, bliss.

Photo courtesy of Bakerella

Tags: Baking, blogs, cooking, diets