I find it quite amazing how easy baking comes to me. I never thought I'd not only be able to but enjoy baking like I do. Life gives us so many unexpected but awesome surprises and I'm thankful for ever single one of them!! What's even more fantastic is that it happens to all of us, we just have to pay attention. Sometimes the signs in life are so apparent but other times they can be quite subtle. For example, for 2 years in a row my mother-in-law bought me the first two books in the "Hello, Cupcake" series. I thought they were cute but didn't give them much else thought. That is, until my mom's birthday one year. I had no money but still wanted to do something special for her. I found some cake mix in my pantry and decided, how about I bake her a cake. But, a cake seemed too boring, so I started looking through all my cookbooks until I found the baking section. The "Hello, Cupcake" book immediately caught my eye and the first recipe I opened up to was a recipe for bowling pins, and my mother is obsessed with bowling! Well, of course, I had to make these cupcakes!! So, I went to the store to get the remaining ingredients needed and spent about 3-4 hours baking. Here's a picture of the final product:
For my first attempt at "fancy" cupcakes, I have to say, I did a pretty fabulous job! After baking this batch, I thought it would be pretty cool to start baking cupcakes for everyone on their birthday - I was thinking this would be a unique gift just from me, but still wouldn't cost too much (um... yeah, it's actually a lot pricier than I thought). So, next in line were Kathy and Kelly (technically my dad comes afterward but he was living out of state at the time so he missed out). Kat and Kelly are twins but have very different likes - so, Kat got some kitties and Kelly got my first attempt at "CubCakes". Here's their final products:
It was definitely easier for me when I had a design to follow, but as I kept baking, I just got better :)
And I still use designs I find along the way that I like:
Now, I not only design, but make my cupcakes completely from scratch (no store bought mixtures for this redhead - and a lot of the pictures above are made completely from scratch!) and I'm in the process of creating my own recipes as well! It's such a thrill whenever I bake and it really is just a multitude of Happies for me! One Happy is the actual baking - I love creating the batter and working on it to make it my own! Another Happy is waiting for the cupcakes to bake and the house smelling better and better as the time ticks away! And yet another Happy is when they're all finished and watching people go crazy so they can get one more of my cupcakes because they're just that good!! God truly blessed me with an incredible gift and I promise all of you that I will continue to work on my baking and one day it will be available to everyone everywhere!!!
So, to go along with my point, today's Happy is about the special talents that we all have. Whether it's something like being able to whistle, or being able to recite all the elements and their abbreviations of the Periodic Table, or being able to flip your eyelids inside out or (in my case) being able to bake fun and yummy cupcakes, we all have a talent and we should embrace these talents! We're given them for a reason - and sometimes we have other talents that we didn't even knew was there. Start opening your eyes more and seeing the amazing things you can do. But, don't just see it - celebrate it!!! You are amazing and you do amazing things and you should be very proud of yourself!!! Now, go celebrate the awesomeness that is you and have a beautiful sleep with the sweetest of dreams! Until tomorrow, keep smiling and spreading that love!!
Peace, Love and Happiness!
Karen :)
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