Thing 4: Sell Something that I Make

When I put this item on the list, I assumed it would be a photograph or block print or homemade card. I still have plans to pursue paper crafts and an Etsy shop. But this goal manifested in a way that I never anticipated.

2013 turned out to be the year of the cupcake. I know that cupcakes were trendy like 5 years ago...but I've always been a late bloomer. So it wasn't until this year that I began baking them like fiend. 

And I came to learn one thing about cupcakes...people love them. 

There is really never a wrong time for cupcakes. I've brought them to work on Mondays and Fridays. I've baked them for birthdays and Christmas. I sent them to people who were mourning loved ones and celebrating long-term accomplishments.

This year I turned my love of cupcakes into Bay State Cupcake...an at home, kitchen bakery. My first commission was a 75 cupcakes for a graduation party. Go big or go home!

Oh Holy Afternoon

On Saturday, I headed to the home of Thoreau, Emerson and Alcott to hear a (mostly) Christmas, barbershop quartet chorus concert.  Yes, barbershop choruses (chori?) still exist...and no, there was no haircutting happening.  Just 40-50 men in their best Christmas ties ready to serenade.

I must admit, I was anticipating (and hoping for) bedazzled, sequin vests but sadly they were a shiny, snowy white.

They sang all my favorite Christmas songs and happily refrained from any of the stupid cheesy Christmas songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."  My eyes maybe, almost teared during "Oh Holy Night" because it's my favorite Christmas song of all time.  The "fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices" gets me every time.  I've loved it ever since Macaulay Culkin wandered into that church and made friends with the creepy old man in Home Alone...so basically forever.

After the concert, I headed home to bake crack cookies saltine toffee for the first cookie party of the season, and construct a GIANT snowflake out of popsicle sticks.