A New Direction

First of all – Happy 2016 Everyone!! I know we are now, what, 11 days in? But still, that first full week of January and the whole back to work/back to school/back to some kind of normal routine can sometimes be a tough one. So well done you, we’ve all made it through relatively unscathed. I hope.

I took some time over the Christmas break to seriously consider some thoughts that have been milling around for over a year now and I felt I need to address them once and for all.

For the past 18 months or so I have been thinking about other topics that I want to blog about but every guide to blogging that you read says that you should only blog about one thing and one thing only, so I have always pushed them to the back of mind.

Whenever they resurfaced – which was on a very regular basis – I thought the only way I could possibly satisfy the cravings would be to start a second blog. However from experience trying to keep two blogs updated and current and on the go takes way more time than I have to dedicate and devote to it and feel as if I am doing a semi-decent job at it and be happy with the outcome. So once again I push them to the back of my mind.

But 2016 is the year that I am actually going to act on this urge to blog about more than just food and recipes and I eventually thought of how I could do it without having to add to my work load by having a second blog.

For a while I have been struggling with the creation of new recipes that I feel I can share. So many weekends I just go through the motions without truly be pleased with what I have created and generally feeling totally uninspired. Which makes me sad. I don’t want to feel like that.

One of the other problems is the name that I gave this blog right here – The Pink Rose Bakery – kind of suggests food and not much else, right? I have considered changing it but there are so many things tied up with that name now that trying to change it would be such a headache.

So here is the plan for the coming year: I have often day-dreamed of owning my own little coffee shop / bakery. A place where people come to chat and mingle and eat cake. There would be a bookshelf were people can leave books they have read for others to pick up and peruse. In the evenings it would be a venue for craft classes and groups. Generally a little hive of activity.

Right now the dream of physically owning such a place is far, far away. However, I can turn this little space on mine on the internet into my virtual bakery. Which is exactly what I am going to do.

From now on there will be a couple of recipe posts a month, along with posts such as Craft Corner, the Bakery Bookshelf and Bakery Beauty. Each post will be clearly marked so that if one – or all – of those things aren’t of interest to you, you can easily avoid them. I don’t expect everyone to be into all of those things. But they are the things I want to talk about.

The added bonus of mixing things up a little is that the pressure is off on the recipe front and not every weekend will be about trying to create this, that or the other, and I am hoping that will help me feel more inspired about the recipes that I do create.

It would seem that I am not the only one who feels this way about blogging and how it has become too focused. Do you remember when blogs started? When they weren’t so commercial? When there wasn’t such a focus on them being ‘successful’? People blogged about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted and there was none of this “you can only blog about one thing, you can only be focused on one thing and that is all” being drilled into us every minute of the day.

So here’s to 2016 and the start of something a little different. I’m glad to have you along for the ride!