Did I mention I like to bake?

So I told you guys about this awesome baking blog I discovered called “Baking Bites”, right?  Well between that and Betty Crocker and AllRecipes.com , I found my cookie inspiration and truly regained my baking mojo.

It’s weird to say, but losing all those months to breast cancer diagnosis, surgery, treatment, and starting Tamoxifen, I also lost my ability for a while to do random things I like.  Like baking and photography.

I picked up the camera again as soon as my stitches, etcetera were healed enough that I could lift a camera without wincing, but the time to myself to just bake and cook and be a slightly domestic diva didn’t roll around until now. Because once I got back to normal, work ramped up like it always does and I just felt like I was running hither and thither like a chicken with its head cut off.

But last week, when I agonized over taking a few hours off to attend my mother’s Christmas luncheon I realized I was breaking my promise to myself post-breast cancer surgery/treatment to make time for ME; to take time for what I wanted to do.  After all, at 47, every extra year you get with your own parents is a blessing…let alone surviving even one bout with breast cancer – a lot of women aren’t that lucky.  So I decided to pick myself up and stick to my own promises…..

So I was a lady who lunched for a couple of hours for and afternoon last week and now I have  baked….and baked…..and baked…

Peanut butter, chocolate chip, and cardamom sugar cookies . Molasses, Pfeffernusse, Snickerdoodles, and Lemon Macaroons. Raided tins from blonde Barb’s basement, and have gone thru 2 lbs. Butter, 5 lbs flour, and so on.

This elf’s ass is dragging…but my baking mojo is back, and it felt good to do all this if not a little insane.

I see recipes as a basic guide.  I drive people crazy because I pretty much experiment and change them all.

The cookie chronicles for Christmas 2011 is now over but for the eating.  (No, not all by me, sillies!)