Well crap, I was amped to start getting back to this whole blogging thing upon returning from California last week…but then came 4 cakes due in a 3 day period and well, it took every ounce of creative energy out of me.  This past weekend I had a 3 cake order for a beautiful winter wedding at The Bowery Hotel.  Then came today’s “wedding cake” editorial order for a magazine’s summer wedding issue.  I am not allowed to share any photos until the magazine hits stands in a couple months, but I did post a tiny sneak peak on my Instagram.

Now it’s time to get to the third and final baking job of the week.  To be totally honest I am dreading this job quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting to put my time and energy into designing and baking cakes, but I would just LOVE for my hands to be clean of sugar and my kitchen to get to stay clean for a few days.  But, oh well…one more job it is.  I am looking forward to getting to go back to the just-for-fun DIYs and blogging this weekend.

One last thing I felt like sharing. (Sorry, after spending a few days in the kitchen, I’m enjoying this sitting at a computer thing a little too much right now!)  A while back I found an old cookbook from the 50’s at a thrift store. When I took the book home and was thumbing through the pages I found a little card inside.  The card, which was probably used as a bookmark at one point, read “Don’t Talk About Yourself. We Will Do That For You When You Are Dead.”  Ha!  A little dark, a little deep, but no doubt a common belief of that time.  Over the past year I’ve thought about that card a lot and have laughed thinking about how drastically the times have changed. Clearly, that was a pre-Instagram / social media way of thinking, with so many outlets dedicated solely to self-promotion these days.  What’s difficult for me about the modern way of sharing is that way too often I find myself comparing my work to others…and even comparing my own work to my own work.  I find myself questioning why some posts receive more “likes” than others….geeez, I hate it…I really hate it. It’s made me over-think what I share before I share it, which has definitely impacted me creatively. I want to work on ignoring that and being able to share my work freely without worry or acknowledgement of how it gets received.  Hey, perhaps that will be a resolution for me this year!  But ANYWHO, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and today I came across a post from the amazing illustrator Dallas Clayton, which was so perfect and absolutely relate-able…exactly what I needed to hear today, so I wanted to share it on here. Below you’ll see the illustration and the words that accompanied his Instagram post.  You can find more of Dallas Clayton’s incredible work on his website HERE.

“It’s nice to be popular. It’s a good feeling- to belong, to have a voice that is heard, agreed with, supported. It’s nice to know people care about you, think about you. Could be your classmates at school, peers at work, maybe even strangers on the street. It’s tricky though, when we begin to put popularity first, to consider it synonymous with worth. We raise children to believe that life is not a popularity contest, and yet here on all sides of us we find ranking, calculating, listing from best to worst. Doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, near as I can tell. Popularity contests are in fact as popular as they’ve ever been. Ha! So how do we reckon with it? I suspect the answer has something to do with embracing that thing you love, knowing that who you are and what you are doesn’t have to be popular to matter. Celebrating, in the face of all this projected desire to sit in the number one spot, the idea that the small and simple things can have just as much impact as those designed blanket the masses. Play your song, raise your banner, love your love, find your worth, and be yourself, no matter who’s listening.” – Dallas Clayton