Happy New Year 2014

Well it's the first day of 2014 and I've started it as I mean to go on.. with a cake in the oven. I'll write a blog post about this particular cake later but for now I'm going to leave you in suspense as to the design. It's quite an appropriate start to the year though. 

So while I'm waiting for it to cook I thought I'd write a little post about the coming year and what I hope to achieve. 

I guess one of the biggest things which will happen is us moving house. I hope that this will happen at some point in February but who knows?! We are really looking forward to moving, partly because we'll be in our own house for the first time and we are planning this is a house for life. Secondly because we'll be moving to the village of Ringmer, meaning we're closer to Gary's family. I'm looking forward to being able to get out and about a bit easier, visiting the children's groups and hopefully making some contacts. 

Linked to this I hope that 2014 will be the year that we get our new kitchen. The house we're hoping to buy has only got a small kitchen so once we're in the plan is to convert the garage. I would love to be able to afford an extension on the back too, linking the kitchen to the utility room, but I don't think we'll be able to afford both so for now it'll be a trip through the back garden to join them. I will, however, have a half my kitchen and it'll be a good start. With the new kitchen will come the other big thing of the year..

Once the kitchen is finished I hope to register it so that I can officially become a business. I will need to register it with the food hygiene people so that I can safely sell my cakes and I'll be back in the world of self employment again. I'm not expecting the business to ever get to the stage where it supports us but a little extra income would be very useful indeed. I hope the business will take off but this depends very much on the likes of you... 

I have started creating a new website and I hope that we can get this ready in the next few months, along with getting some business cards printing and smartening up my portfolio. 

In the coming year I hope to further improve my skills. I'll finish my current course in March, on my birthday to be precise, and then I hope to start another one in September. This is much more costly but will, eventually, give me 3 diplomas and a masters in sugar craft. I hope that this will really help advance my skills and take my cakes up another level. Of course I'll continue to practice myself and improve on a cake to cake basis. 

I hope that I can keep my diary full with cakes, at the moment I've been fortunate enough to have a few people ordering cakes from me. I really want word to spread a little further so I can get a decent contact basis together. I understand that my cakes can't be a day to day order but the more people that are aware of me the better, so please spread the word. 

I hope that my facebook presence can improve in the next year and I would like to get to a modest 100 likes. I have a long way to go yet but I will continue plugging away at it. Even if you aren't local I still want you to "like" the page. It looks much better to have 100 likes than 30, also if you like then a friend might see and then a friend.. onwards and onwards and I'll gradually get seen by the right people. 

On a personal level 2014 is the year my little sister is getting married :). The year that Gary gets a promotion and gets a massive payrise (I'm dreaming!!) and the year my niece/nephew will be born. I'm sure there's lots more that is happening this year, like me losing a huge chunk of weight, but we shall just have to wait and see what happens through this time. 

Have a good year all :). 

Happy New Year from Mini Manley