Lost my marbles. I think I baked them in my cheesecake.

The aftermath of Christmas cookie season being over is this great void in my life in bakinglandia.  Christmas is about the only time where you can give platefuls of cookies to the masses, so I have been on the hunt for new excuses to bake.  Not to worry however (as I am sure you were ever so worried reading these last few lines and wondering how I was coping during this terribly difficult season), days after the end of cookie season, I was asked to bake in March at a banquet.  Let me tell you, when my boss said "bake whatever you want, the sky is the limit," I could hear the angels singing.  Along with the request came the suggestion that the dessert could co-function as the centerpiece.  Heaven.  Desserts can be art and now its time to be Picasso.  I refuse for the record to create sugar sculptures that compromise taste.  No fondant.  Finding the perfect recipe is going to be a challenge, because it is high altitude mass product-ed elegance but at least I am not on Sweet Genius  and having to make a decadent dessert inspired by toe fungus and including anchovies.  This is gonna be fun! Here is product number 1: Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake. Ain't she purdy?

To be honest, I knew even before baking this recipe that it wasn't going to work for the banquet but I had to try.  I like to marble things. 

This new baking project is definitely taking me to my happy place, which is probably good because I am simultaneously going crazy.  Exciting adventures are about to ensue, but not before loads of papers and forms are filled and filed.  I have started, as a result of this craziness, to write down all of my thoughts, lists, reminders and freak outs in a cutesy black leather monogrammed journal I got today. (Hey, if you are going to record your freak outs, might as well put them in a journal that is so formal it tricks people into thinking you have it together, right?  Annnnd, since it is monogrammed, if I get forgetful, at least I can always remember my first initial.) 

To de-stress, I also have taken to Jillian Micheal's 6-week Six Pack workout video.  I just started week 4 and my abs certainly are getting a busting and then some.  It has been most excellent, and also a welcome respite from the overly packed gyms from everyone who has decided to partake in New Year's Resolutions this year and that football is more suitable for the gym than the Food Network.  Yup, me an Jillian Micheals are gonna be best buds for a while.  She's got 3 more weeks to show my core whats up and then I figure the gym will be back to it's previously empty state at 10 pm.  Just how I like it. 

Alright y'all, this post has now cut into one of my six hours of sleep I planned to get tonight, and I've got to get dreaming of all those sugar plums and such for my banquet in March.  To come are many hopefully delightful, decadent and delicious treats as I explore the aesthetics of the pastry world.  Its going to be B-E-A-uuuuutiful or so I hope. 

Sweet dreams!

P.S. I am feeling a little delirious and pun-y at the moment.  I was going to tell you I would keep you "posted" on my adventures in the final paragraph (because a blog entry is called a post) but I avoided it because then it turned into one of those if you have to explain the joke it is no longer funny kind of things but then I couldn't not include it because I had typed-deleted-typed-deleted one too many times and it needed to happen.  Thought you should know.  Now you do.  P.S. rocks for reasons such as these.