"Cookie Resolution" has Begun!

What is my cookie resolution? Well, to put it plainly, the goal is to try at least one new cookie recipe every week until Christmas. I will then gather the top rated recipes to go into my annual Christmas tins. I want my Christmas cookies to blow people's minds away with deliciousness!

Around the same time every year, generally right after Thanksgiving, I pull out the old stand by recipes and cookbooks. I start flipping through, making my list of what to make, and what ingredients to buy. This last year I felt so uninspired! None of my cookies make you say, "Whoa mama, is that good!" So I went to Amazon (God bless Amazon) and started searching for new cookbooks, some top rated ones. I needed cookbooks that would give me a challenge to try something different. I added several to my wish list, and then I promptly shared it with family to give them Christmas gift ideas. My family came through! I had a stack of new cookbooks. Where was I going to begin? What was I going to try? I was excited by all the possibilities and motivated to get started, but Christmas had just ended. I definitely didn't want to wait a year to get started and only pick out a handful of recipes that just looked good. What if I tried ones that were complete flops? I didn't want to disappoint. I only do this cookie/candy making extravaganza once a year!

New Year's resolution time had rolled around. Of course, I told myself I need to lose at least my 40 extra pounds of "baby weight" that was still clinging to me. But as I stared at my cookbooks, knowing that they were probably going to end up being pushed to the dark corner of the kitchen, I made the resolution that they would be used. I was determined, but I knew if I was going to be successful at resolution #1, I couldn't just have a bunch of cookies hanging around the house. I would just send them into my husband's work and let his co-workers get fat instead of me. But I thought, "Why are they reaping all of the yummy benefits from my hard work? I've never met these people." Ah-ha! Make them work for the cookies! Give them a survey with their free deliciousness! I'll give a survey to every person that tries my weekly cookie and that way I'll have some concrete evidence that a cookie was successful (or not).

I realize that the surveys may seem extreme- a little crazy. But I'm passionate! And it feels good to be really into something for what feels like maybe the first time ever. I don't know how successful the survey thing is going to go, but I know that I will continue making a new cookie every week and I'll let you know how it goes. By the end of this year I'm going to have (fingers-crossed) one awesome tin of cookies to give out.